The One
by alexoiknine
Summary: A #55 book, continuing from #54. The Animorphs have gone in search of Aximili. In spite of the difficulties the attempt to save Ax from The One continues. Complete, further changes would be listed on site.
1. Prologue Aximili

**Prologue**

**Aximili Esgarrouth Isthill**

My name is Aximili.

And I was floating.

I did not know how long I had been here, held hostage. Or where "here" was. Was I even myself? Was I alive? Could I be freed?

I did not know anything about my surroundings. Or my history, or even my future.

I had been an Andalite, I recalled. An extra-terrestrial to humans, but well known to humankind since the end of my last war – a battle against a parasitic species called the Yeerks, who had started a covert invasion of the planet Earth.

I had been born in the shadow of my brother, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. He was the one who had given my five comrades the power of the _Escafil_ device. He had told them of the power they now possessed, able to make them become other animals – anything they could touch and acquire – for two hours at a time. He had explained the war and had told my friends, my comrades-in-arms, that they could fight to push back the invasion until the Andalite fleet came back to Earth.

Jake – my Prince, that is, the commander of our team of guerilla fighters. The one who would carry the weight of most of our decisions in the war, the one who would be most worn by those decisions. Strong, mature for his age, I had been proud to serve him for the years we had been at war. With the Yeerk forces, on Earth.

Rachel, the brave and dark member of our outfit, who died in the last battle. Though she had worried and occasionally frightened us, Rachel had died bravely, in the end. Though her last fight and her death had been wasted – the Blade Ship escaping afterward. Had taken off, with the _Escafil_ device that could bestow those who used it with morphing powers.

Marco, Prince Jake's best friend, the reluctant member beginning the fight to save his friend's mother, and staying in the fight to reclaim his stolen mother and save his father.

Cassie, the gentle member who, amazingly, had realized the way in the end to cause more Yeerks to defect _en masse_.

And Tobias, the troubled human boy who would become a _nothlit- _the Andalite term for a being who has stayed in morph for two hours, resulting in being trapped permanently in that morph's shape. Tobias was my best friend, my _shorm_, and also Prince Elfangor's son through meddling done by a greater force we knew to be the Ellimist. By those ties Tobias was, oddly enough, my nephew.

They found me later – dubbed as the Animorphs_ –_ and we had been through more battles than I could ever count. We had been through more battles than most Andalite or human warriors would experience in a lifetime. We had fought for years. Amazingly, we had won.

When I had left with the Andalite fleet, finally a prince myself – a well established warrior, and a leader – the ranks of our military were being laid off. The war over, there was not much left to do in the military realm other than look for the Blade Ship. The same Yeerks that had killed Rachel, who had been sent on a suicide mission in an attempt to detain the Blade Ship and prevent it from spreading through the galaxy.

I was assigned to the _Intrepid_, the spacecraft assigned to look for the Blade Ship and the renegade Yeerks looking to start a new empire based on the enslavement of other intelligent species. We had not found anything in spite of all our travels. Two years had gone by and we had found nothing – the chances of finding a single Blade Ship in all of space were astronomical. My team had the best assignment around in the entire Andalite fleet, and still, it was a monotonous task.

Maybe I had gotten lazy. Or just less cautious. I had drilled my officers repeatedly and had tried my best to stay on my hoofs. Still, I had caused what seemed to be the inevitable end of my team.

We had never found the Blade Ship. We had found an older but much larger vessel. A vessel that when we boarded it suddenly became alive and hostile. It had not been Yeerk, or anything I had ever known. Where in space this creature had come from was unknown to me, and my boarding crew and I had been completely unprepared with no time to morph - and hardly time to fire.

The being controlling the vessel invaded me, took my mind, had control over my body.

It was known only as The One.

As it entered me, absorbed me, and made me a part of itself I cried out for Prince Jake. I cried out for my _shorm_ Tobias. Marco, my co-conspirator. Cassie. My human friends from the war that felt like lifetimes ago now – lifetimes since I had last seen them. And I knew that if they received the message, they would come. Prince Jake and the others would find me.

Because it is human and Andalite nobility, but also, because it was our responsibility to each other as comrades-in-arms, no matter how long ago the war we fought together had ended.

That drive, that friendship, was imperative to the next planned attack.

The One was a thing that absorbed other creatures that put them into suspended animation indefinitely; it fed off of the memories of those it absorbed as it kept the ones it "appreciated." It was an old thing of collective memory, remembering a planet that had once been nothing but water, a planet decaying. A planet that it had managed to escape from.

A chance as species who investigated the planet for resources left. It soon had the species and its craft hostage. Its species – not even an animal – had evolved to survive without the complete submergence of water and had become, oddly enough, almost like one of the socialized insects of Earth or _Gahana Har_ – multiplying while all working for the main piece and referring to its collective identity as The One. It was a fast, efficient machine at absorption and manipulation of living things. Not as powerful as some things on its planet had been – but it was a trade. Less power, more motility and the escape from its planet that had been doomed by rot and decay of some lesser known genetic relative.

And I knew in my hearts, when it accessed my memories, that it would go looking for the remainders of my team. The other beings who with an army of six staved off an entire planet's invasion.

It would do anything for us.

The One needed beings new, live, well-lived. It was a bored thing, looking for a new game. So I called, to my friends, knowing they would come if anyone delivered my message. So The One would be ever-so-slightly delayed in its quest for Earth and the Andalite Home World: My two homes.

The One had disposed of most of the Yeerk crew my spacecraft had been searching for when it had first taken the Blade Ship. We had been tricked – The One only kept alive what it found interesting. Which meant the disposal of most of the Yeerk and Andalite crew, save three or four each. The Controllers – people infested with Yeerks – had been kept to maintain the Blade Ship elsewhere; they had some of The One with them, looking for others to infest. Most of The One, however, stayed in this older spacecraft, to play games.

I was most interesting to this creature. I was an Andalite: The creature my friend Marco had described long ago as appearing to be part blue deer, part scorpion, and part human. The creature that had no mouth and ate with its hoofs. The creature with the deadly tail blade. The creature with stalk eyes.

The creature that had been feared by all the Yeerks on the Blade Ship.

Not to mention my war experience. My memories. Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, of the Animorphs during the Yeerk invasion of Earth? The one who had been under the command of Jake the Yeerk-Killer?

Every Yeerk The One had absorbed had known who I was. Not a single controller had not known my name by the end of that war.

Because of these things, The One kept me. Alive, feeling, seemingly active.

But I knew I was merely a puppet absorbed into The One. That my body lay tethered somewhere in a large spacecraft somehow left in suspended animation. I knew my disposal, if I became boring, predictable, unimpressive, would be fast but painful.

I had "seen" much of my crew die. Their deaths, while real, had of course only been perceived by me as The One had allowed me to perceive them. The One had not given me the control I needed over my body to open my true eyes and see what the fate was of someone who was disposed of. But I didn't need to see it: The One had shown me what we looked like in the beginning as a threat.

I was, perhaps, more enslaved than even a Controller could ever be.

The One played games with me. I had opportunities to save remaining the host bodies of human-Controllers and Andalites from my team aboard the spacecraft. I would have to win a challenge against The One. Challenges that usually consisted of reliving the battles in my mind with my old team, though I could never win. And the numbers of the humans and Andalites both went down greatly.

I pleaded. I cursed. I begged. The One kept me indifferently to my suffering. I would have to beat The One in order to save anyone from the fate of being disbanded and eliminated from its spacecraft, which I began calling The Cage.

Until there was only one of each left.

At that point I blackmailed The One: If it killed the last two survivors of either spacecraft stuck in The Cage, I would not cooperate with any games. I would stop playing. It would get nothing new from me. No playing whatsoever, or ever again.

‹Please, leave me these companions - do not make me see another death,› I had told it, ‹Or I will not cooperate. I will not play your game any longer. And you will become bored with me.›

The One could invade my mind and make me do whatever it wanted, of course. I knew it. However, without my own cooperation The One would always get a predictable answer: The answer it made me give. The One was a bored, lonely creature that needed the companion of its living slaves for its own well-being.

It needed me.

And so, the human woman Leah and one of my team, Ondrean-Nefaral-Itskeillat, were left with me as companions for both off-time and in games. Ondrean-Nefaral-Itskeillat had been a simple but honest Andalite – not the brightest energy-beam thruster as an Andalite might have said, or "not an Einstein" but an honest Andalite. Leah, too, was not a human of great ingenuity – unlike Marco, though she was not less intelligent than the average human. But they were real, unpredictable, and most importantly to me – alive.

But The One had a favorite and more lasting punishment for my act of defiance and blackmail. From that day on, my perceived form in any off-time from games or challenges initiated by The One was that of a human, the old morph I had created by acquiring my human friends years ago.

Ondrean pitied me, though I told him that while I missed the notion of galloping I at least had a human mouth and the ability to imagine eating cinnamon buns. Internally I felt far less optimistic about my condition.

Being human full-time even if only a mental perception left me feeling as conflicted as I had occasionally in the past amongst my human friends. I had missed being human. I had missed my human friends, and eating human foods. I had forgotten how comfortable it had become over time to be in human morph and interacting with things as a human. How I had almost gotten used to being without stalk eyes much of the time as a result of frequent morphing. And I knew The One had acted on that to make my days with the companions I had saved miserable, even as I could also re-create and visit all my favorite human restaurants as a human.

I had missed the Cinnabon.

The more games we played, the less The One let me see of Ondrean, my present-day Andalite comrade. The One was more entertained by my internal conflict, I supposed. After all, what could my relationship with another Andalite provide it? There was nothing controversial about an Andalite acting as an Andalite or having Andalite friends.

So I was left human in its created world during any off-time with the young woman Leah. who could not morph and lacked any specialty I could see – though I suppose that was to be expected from anyone who had been a Controller as long as she had - before she had ever hit her years as even an adolescent. And in the mean time, with all my questions. And all my concerns and plans to be laid out to rest while waiting for the next match. And remembering all my past turmoil resulting from being of two worlds, and having two loyalties that had become equally important to me emotionally.

As Leah and I were forced to interact for longer periods of time without Ondrean around, I taught her to fire a Shredder and a Dracon weapon to the best of my – and her – capabilities. Though Ondrean would have been a better shot. I had not fought with a Shredder during my years on Earth.

We discussed military strategy or what the thing was here, and I told her about Andalite history. And I found, while not particularly gifted or ambitious, that Leah did have the strength of having a shallow breadth of knowledge in quite a variety of topics.

I had a difficult time not comparing her in my mind to my human friends. She was knowledgeable in some ways with zoology that surpassed my human friend Cassie during my time on Earth, though her knowledge was not as experienced or well applied. She was not the natural fighter Rachel had been, but she had learned to work passably and took risk, getting more aggressive the more she trained. I saw that with time Leah might even learn to become reckless in the right scenario. And I imagined, from the little she discussed, that her home life had probably been more similar to Tobias than to the other Animorphs, even as she tended to keep the subject rather private, instead moving into other topics as quickly as possible. I wondered if perhaps it was for the best she had never obtained morphing powers.

I had decided the comparisons made sense. I missed my friends. I was alone, a slave in ways I had not even imagined existed before meeting The One. I was hoping my friends would save me, or at least manage to defeat The One before it moved into Andalite or human space zones. So I tried to find them in the one human I knew. Though it was difficult, because as I felt human most of the time it was hard for me not to get attached to her as a human.

And knowing The One had anticipated and took glee in such a success in torturing me, my hatred was renewed. I did not know how, or when, but we would find a way out.

So I continued to assess Leah, to train, to learn for battles. We would play the game, and we would continue to play games against each other and train for the day we could win. In the meantime, I hoped for the arrival of my friends, once hailed the "Animorphs."

Leah and I, we waited.


	2. Chapter One Jake

**Chapter One**

**Jake**

My name is Jake.

I'm a normal person, I guess. Or at least, I used to be. More recently I was actually a famous war veteran. Though I guess I'm still one of those. That was why I was on this mission, actually: Andalites and Andalite spacecraft couldn't go into _Kelbrid_ space without starting an interstellar war.

The Andalites couldn't go after Ax, but they did want him rescued. Not just because of who he was, but because they had a tense relationship with these _Kelbrid_ people. A kidnapping of an Andalite or two could be an attempt to gather intelligence, and this was risky for a group they knew to be aggressive and war-like. So the remaining survivor of his crew aboard the Andalite ship known as the _Intrepid_ had gone to inform me of the situation. And to enlist me secretly, illegally, as a rescue team for my old friend Ax.

I couldn't refuse to save Ax. Ax was one of mine. We'd been through more battles than any of the people around me, and we'd known horrors others could hardly imagine. What the rest of the team and I had, it was deeper than friendship, it was almost oneness.

I had always said I'd rather be me and on my own than being part of something bigger or greater. And in many ways that was true. I hadn't asked for the war, or for the Yeerks to come to Earth. If I'd had nothing but normal friends and a normal life I'd have been happier, definitely. Able to pull myself together more, probably. But even with the way things were, I realized that I was a part of something greater. An accident of my birth. I couldn't undo that, and I didn't want to erase the people that meant my life _was_ just a part of something bigger around me.

I'm not sure if I had realized that as much then as when Menderash – the sole known survivor of Ax's ship the _Intrepid – _had told me of what had become of him, and his only hope for survival. How I couldn't leave them behind anymore than they would have left me.

No matter what the consequences of those ties were.

So I gathered Tobias and Marco secretly. I also recruited two people from the class I had taken up teaching intelligence for various nations how to best use morphing technology, Santorelli and Jeanne. I hadn't lied about the chances to get their recruitment. Menderash, an Andalite who had voluntarily become a _nothlit _retained a human morph so he could go on the mission. He was the one who knew the coordinates, our map. Not to mention the only one of us who actually knew how to fly a spaceship. Other than Jeanne and Santorelli, we hadn't been part of any official military movement or undergone training.

According to Menderash the ship we were looking for was huge, a behemoth. It would dwarf a Blade Ship and even many Dome Ships – spacecraft that contained Andalite grass and fields so they could travel through space comfortably, since they ate by running and collecting nutrients through their hoofs. That it had shown a high likeliness of being in contact with the Blade Ship, at one point, because it had polar bear hair within it – the hair of the same morph that had killed Rachel. A huge, asymmetrical item of many colors.

Menderash had said it had reminded some of the Andalites aboard the _Intrepid_ of Earth buildings. Of skyscrapers. Tobias, Marco, and I thought it sounded more like an Iskoort nightmare as he described the different colors of each piece and the lack of symmetry. A space-ship lego structure. But we hadn't known the Iskoort to have huge amounts of spacecraft technology.

Hijacking a prototype Yeerk craft that had been a mix between a fighter and a Blade Ship, my team and I had gone out in search of the Blade Ship and this unknown alien spacecraft that had attacked the _Intrepid_. We flew into _Kelbrid_ space pretending to be part of the Federation, which, since we were theoretically after a group that contained Human-Controllers who would have known what _Star Trek_ was... Well, in retrospect it hadn't been the best idea.

We had searched for months, out in _Kelbrid _space. Had gotten comfortable with each other as much as possible. I had spent a lot of time on my own, thinking. Tobias off on his own, a lot, for similar reasons. Marco and Menderash had become good friends when he gave up on attracting Jeanne's attention. And Santorelli and Jeanne seemed to feel most comfortable with each other as two people from the same class.

There were amazing things out in _Kelbrid _space. And we kept looking. We didn't know if we'd find anything, but we kept looking, hopeful, for the ship described by Menderash. But eventually, the Blade Ship came.

The Blade Ship had found and hailed us. We had thought we'd deceived them into thinking we were also Yeerks that had defected from the Yeerk Empire, escaping the Andalite fleet. But there was no such luck.

We had found the Blade Ship, and had encountered some sort of being that seemed even to have the Yeerks under control, the being called The One. We couldn't see much about The One, or know what about it was real or not – it had filled the screen up, shifted shapes, taken on even the face of our closest friend.

"Can we shoot ?" I had asked Menderash.

"His Dracon cannon have longer range and greater firing power. And his defensive field have been enhanced. I doubt our cannon can penetrate them."

"I thought so," I said, "But we're faster."

"Yes."

I looked to everyone. Santorelli. Jeanne. Tobias. Menderash. And finally Marco.

"What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"

Silence from the crew on board. And I was in my place. After feeling behind on everything for so many years. After the pain. I was home. And I had the perfect plan.

Rachel, my cousin, would have been proud.

I smiled.

"Full emergency power to the engines," I commanded, "Ram the Blade Ship."

Menderash set the commands into the control console and cut the communication with the Blade Ship short. No more communications were necessary. This was battle mode now.

"Are you CRAZY?" Marco yelled, "We're all going to die if we hit that thing at full power! It has higher defenses!"

I knew it. Our chances were pretty slim. But I had to delegate, and I had to delegate fast.

"Menderash," I said, "Get yourself strapped down as safely as you can for the impact we will have. Everyone else, we need to morph something sturdy. Go to cockroach, as fast as you can, because we have less than thirty seconds."

No one needed to be told twice. Menderash was belted in faster than I could have said "tacos." Jeanne and Santorelli were going to be slower morphers, but they were going and they were going as fast as they could. Unfortunately, it was still too slow. They just didn't have the practice my old team had: We were morphing champions.

And we were morphing fast.

‹Man. You know, I thought going roach was done. And this whole war thing. I could have been playing as an extra in that new _Animorph_ movie. You know, like Stephen King does to step in on his work. But here I am getting myself killed to save Ax-man from what looks like evil _Play-Doh_ on our interface. Jake, next time bring Cassie in on this too. She should have as much fun as me.›

I rolled my eyes. For all his whining, Marco was already more roach than human. Like I said, a practiced morph was a fast morph.

I looked at the console as my eyes went from human to the compound eyes of an insect. We had ten seconds left to impact.

‹Marco,› I said as I became roach enough to use the telepathic form of communication known as thought-speak morphing allows, ‹My last words to you: Shut. Up.›

I just was not in the mood for his whining. I was too busy worrying about whether we could morph fast enough. We hadn't had to morph in years and hadn't exactly been practicing roah morph on the _Rachel_, my cousin's namesake.

Nine...

Eight... Six legs now...

‹Oh Jake, you know we can't part on a fight, let's kiss and make up. You can't hate me. I'm so _Spiderman_. Or well, _Roachman_.›

Five... I had antennae.

‹Call me when you can get Batman on board.›

Three...

I hoped everyone who could morph was done and somewhere safe.

Two... I was about as big as a tennis ball.

One...

My body was almost fully roach and dwindling in size rapidly.

I thought about how long ten seconds could feel when imminent death was the most likely outcome.

The last second felt like it hung forever.

‹The alien vessel!› I heard Menderash's shocked and anguished cry. ‹We have been intercepted by the alien vessel!›

_That's right_, I thought stupidly, still morphing, _Menderash had said the Blade Ship hadn't been the one to attack. Stupid! Why didn't I remember that? Why didn't we see it?_

Of course, none of these thoughts had time to make any sense. Be coherent. Because we had no time left even as I was trying to finish my morph. But there had, there had been another ship. One wa had totally forgotten about during those months, somehow, as we went looking for Ax. And that one, not the Blade Ship, had attacked the _Intrepid_.

Zero.

And I felt the impact hurl me across the _Rachel_, still shrinking as I flew with the force of impact...

But not from the angle I had expected.


	3. Chapter Two Marco

**Chapter Two**

**Marco**

My name is Marco.

I am, in a word, magnificent. Famous. Cute. Smart. Wise. Altruistic. To a fault I will sacrifice my time, good looks, modesty, and fame to the greater cause.

Did I mention cute?

But apparently I had agreed to suicide to join Jake in this new mission to save Ax's life. Don't get me wrong: I owed Ax big time. He'd saved my life with that tail of his more times than I could count.

Of course, I'd thought we'd go, get into a scrape or two and drag Ax's blue butt back out of the Blade Ship. Well, maybe not: We had been maybe just a _little_ informed that the Andalites and _Kelbrid_ had a slightly more tense relationship than a group around the campfire singing Kumbayah. Still, I had thought we would get a good fight going before anything else happened.

Unfortunately, my man Jake apparently had other plans.

As Menderash – the resident _nothlit_ - set the ship to ram our new enemy, everyone with a bug in their veins began morphing like the devil was at their heels. The problems with this gem of an idea were that a) we had no time to morph and b) being able to morph fast and efficiently takes practice. Something Jake, Tobias and I all had. But not Santorelli or Jeanne.

At least, nothing compared to what we had.

Oh, and of course, c) Menderash was already trapped in human morph and so he could not morph into something better able to take a hit.

I knew this was bad because Jake was already stuck on beating himself up from the last causality he had caused from the last war. But he was right, and we didn't have much time, we couldn't wait, and nothing Jake or Tobias or I could do would make Santorelli or Jeanine better morphers in twenty seconds.

To be honest, our likeliness of surviving wasn't going to be improved very well simply by going roach. There was that whole problem of losing air and other necessary things when our spacecraft's systems went out. The air and other gases in our bodies would expand, rupturing. The temperature would drop incredibly fast. It was not a nice thought to have.

I had a feeling we'd be checking into this mess, but not out.

‹Man,› I complained, ‹You know, I thought going roach was done. And this whole war thing. I could have been playing as an extra in that new _Animorph_ movie. You know, like Stephen King does to step in on his work. But here I am getting myself killed to save Ax-man from what looks like evil _Play-Doh_ on our interface. Jake, next time bring Cassie in on this too. She should have as much fun as me.›

‹Marco, my last words to you: Shut. Up.›

I winced a little. I hadn't expected it, but really, the past had been quick witty banter between Rachel and I. Most of the time I felt pretty normal about it, but being back in battle in a way made me realize – Rachel was gone. A truth none of us had really been over – at least... Not like this. Knowing we were in battle. And Rachel wasn't there, for the first time.

I decided I didn't want to leave Jake like that. With just the thoughts of people he had left behind, but hadn't wanted to.

‹Oh Jake, you know we can't part on a fight, let's kiss and make up. You can't hate me. I'm so _Spiderman_.›

‹Call me when you can get Batman on board.›

Tobias remained silent. I wasn't sure whether he was busy mourning Rachel, busy anticipating his own death, or sunk into memories of when she was the one exchanging all the glib remarks with me and sticking figurative icicles into my chest.

Jake, on the other hand, was light on his feet.

I was fairly impressed, in spite of the rage at my imminent death sentence.

Knowing the ship was headed on a collision course, we kept shrinking. And talking. I tried not to wonder about how far along Santorelli was, or Jeanne. Let alone Menderash who was pretty much toast in the event of a collision. It didn't matter how unlikely it was we'd live: I knew if we were killed it would probably be quick and painless, but Menderash could be at least slightly less lucky that way.

Roaches don't feel much pain.

‹The alien vessel! We have been intercepted by the alien vessel!›

Shock. We had all known about the older, alien vessel Menderash had reported as the attacker to the _Intrepid_. The one that had not seemed to have life but had evidence of Yeerk presence – Earth DNA. I heard Jake curse, sure he had not intended for anyone to overhear him beating up on himself.

Still, we were mostly done. We couldn't stop anything anymore. And I felt the impact, an immense shuddering that sent my little roach body flying into the distance. Everything quaked. I could see, with my compound eyes, debris flying everywhere – at least, everywhere within a few inches of me. I felt the structure losing stability and saw cracks grow. Shrapnel from twisting, torn metal. It all hit everywhere.

Everywhere.

I felt the cockroach's instincts rise up, wanting to find a place dark and still. The roach didn't want to be here anymore than I did. But there was nowhere to go and the world was shaking and chaotic and crumbling around my roach body. Internally I felt the fear of wondering whether this was the moment I would be shot out into open space. Or this moment.

Or this moment.

Eventually, though, the shaking did stop and I felt less things flying around me. And I didn't feel my body being destroyed as it would in open space, with no atmosphere. Well, if it would happen as fast to a roach as it would to a human, anyway. I mean, what do I know about science?

‹Jake?› I called out.

Nothing.

‹Jake? Anyone? Jeanine? Menderash? Tobias?›

‹I was wondering when you'd get to me,› Tobias grumbled, ‹I'm alive but I think I'm partially crushed under something. I may need help out before I can demorph.›

‹Jake?›

‹Come on, man,› I continued trying to coax, ‹We have a deer-boy to rescue and I'm not sure me and the winged wonder will do so great on our own!›

Nothing.

Nothing still, and I was getting ready to freak out. But in about another half a minute...

‹Uhhnnnn,› Jake muttered, ‹Ugh. Sorry. I sort of was knocked unconscious since I hadn't morphed all the way through. Out of practice. Hey, I see someone here with me.›

A roach scuttled up next to me.

It's always a bit gross to see another cockroach up close. Even when you _are_ a cockroach.

‹Okay Jake, that's me,› I said.

‹We didn't get the Blade Ship.›

‹That's what I heard. Not that I saw much, you know, roach eyes. Or "heard" in the literal sense. But that is definitely what I heard.›

I heard Jake sigh. Internally I almost wished I could slap him. No one had thought about the alien vessel when they had charged the Blade Ship. It wasn't his fault. Still, he was beating himself up for being the leader who had again failed to do everything perfectly.

‹Well. I'm going to start demorphing slowly. If I can't manage it I'll go back to roach. If I give the okay we go look for survivors.›

The roach next to me who was really Jake began scuttling off. I saw it rising off the floor.

Morphing is never pretty. And you never get used to it. But I watched as well as I could with my little roach eyes, to see if it was safe.

Demorphing. Demorphing. I could feel vibrations from the noises created by bones recreating themselves and organs appearing and moving into place – and then just the massive change in weight and mass. Then...

"Okay, I'm able to breathe, but it's definitely on the light side," Jake said, "Man. That was really lucky for us."

I couldn't really _hear_ Jake, obviously, since I didn't have ears in my roach body. But I could interpret the vibrations as sound and usually we could figure out what those around use were saying. In any case, if he'd been dying I'd have probably felt the floor shaking beneath my legs.

"The other ship put a force field around us," Jake said weirdly, "That's why we still have any air."

I began my own demorph.

‹This smells really bad. If they were going to - –,› I was cut off as my body changed from roach to human.

What Jake said bothered me. The other spacecraft – from the _Kelbrid_ or whatever it was – had made it so we wouldn't die when the impact alone would have completely destroyed us otherwise. Or at least, it had not gone out of its way to destroy us.

It wanted us on board.

I was not a big fan of following the wishes of my enemies.

That old sense, that sense of skepticism and a lack of trust in fortune – it all came back like it had never left me in the first place.

I was a rat, I was in a trap, and I did not like it.

When I was done demorphing and back to my fully human form, I looked around at everything. The gravity was working, but it was shaky and I could almost feel myself losing touch with the floor from time to time. But the metal, the wires, the pipes were all over the place. Communicator broken.

And you'd never think how much you could miss an automatic coffee maker until it's beyond repair.

Jake looked around, haggard again. I wasn't surprised. Our first mission back in battle and we hadn't gotten a response from half our team. It was an entirely new weight and huge blow to his ego: He'd gotten through our first battle without killing anyone on the team. Sure, Tobias had been left behind to become a _nothlit_ back in that world, but no deaths.

Even though we hadn't confirmed anyone dead yet – we'd have to get some of the debris out of the way and hope someone eventually made a response – it didn't seem good. I've been a roach. They're really hard to kill. But even at the worst it only took a few minutes to come to. And if anyone stayed in roach morph too long they would be unable to demorph, trapped forever by the two-hour morphing time-limit. At which point they'd probably hope they were dead anyway.

I didn't envy Jake in his little personal hell right then. But I knew we had a job to do. I walked over to him and uncharacteristically for both of us I put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a nudge.

"Jake, you did what you had to do," I said.

He grimaced and looked up at me. And even though us guys don't share emotions with each other very much, I'm still pretty perceptive by nature. I saw the guilt. Jake wasn't feeling guilty about the deaths, I imagined, but that he had taken advantage of his students and put them in a mission they never had an opportunity to die in admirably. He felt relief – I could tell that – but guilty about it: Survivor's remorse. The guilt he had lived while his comrades died. Maybe even a bit of guilt that he was glad the ones that survived were the ones that went way back with him into the past war.

Admitting that isn't a crime of course. Everyone has favorites and preferences. But in the face of someone's death it always makes Jake feel guilty.

It made me feel guilty too, actually. But feeling guilty about our survival wasn't going to help us. We were still in someone else's trap – and we didn't know anything about The One – whoever and whatever it was. Whether it was allied with the _Kelbrid_ or some rogue on its own. We didn't know what it had done to Ax, or anything else important. We were on its turf, and that meant we needed to keep ourselves together and on the defensive.

I gave Jake another nudge. The movement seemed to shake finally Jake out of his stupor as he sighed and pulled himself back together – looking around.

"Let's look for the others," Jake said.

"Tobias," I said, "If you think you can control it enough, try to demorph the part of your body exposed from the debris. We may find you faster."

We began the search through the _Rachel_ – our spacecraft, a namesake after our fallen comrade from the last war, for survivors. We tried to move everything really carefully to prevent more pressure being put on any side – lifting it straight up so anything underneath wouldn't get crushed by the movements.

That slowed us down a lot. We could have morphed stronger things than our human bodies and easily moved everything fallen around us. But we were afraid to morph larger animals and accidentally kill anyone that might not be dead yet.

Even so, the job eventually got done. We worked slowly because the air in the ship was precarious and thin. I had a feeling we would have to depart sooner instead of later if we wanted the surviving thing to keep working.

It didn't take long to find Tobias. He had slowly, carefully demorphed the part of his body exposed. It takes a lot of concentration to control a morph and none of us on this mission were particularly good at it – but usually with really good concentration it can be done to some extent. He'd grown his head only.

It was really, really gross to look at.

‹Finally,› he groaned, ‹You have no idea what it's like to be trying to support my head at the end of a roach body.›

"Hey Tobias," I said brightly, "Glad to know you are finally the exact opposite of a peabrain. You could be Jimmy Neutron's songbird now. I love it!"

‹Shut up, Marco.›

I wanted to keep the chatter going forever. But Jake gave me a killer stare.

Okay, so Tobias had never really gotten over Rachel. So we were on a mission, some of our crew was certainly dead, and everyone was feeling pretty shabby. I shut up, realizing he was right. My motor-mouth and corny jokes were what we'd need a few hours from now, assuming we weren't fighting or dead. Not mid-search.

Tobias reversed his morph back to cockroach so we could move the thing on top of him more safely – his roach body could stand more damage than his hawk-head, and a brain-dead hawk wasn't going to be able to concentrate on demorphing. He had been lucky. The items could have fallen with him in the middle. He would have been toast.

Like one of the roaches that had been near him.

I felt sorry for Santorelli. Or Jeanne. I knew we'd be having nightmares tonight, knew we'd be crying later even if now wasn't the time. Well. If we made it that far.

Tobias said he wasn't sure who it was because both had been next to him before the first impact which had crushed them with some area of the control console – which part of it because of the indiscriminate wreckage present was uncertain. One – the one on his other side – had been flung away.

But I did not feel as sorry for whoever had been near Tobias as I felt for Menderash.

He was still breathing, gurgling as blood trickled out of his mouth and down his throat. His eyes were unseeing and rolled into the back of his head. A large part of him had been burnt by wiring. The pain had to be unbearable. But even as a _nothlit _stuck in the body of a human, Menderash was an Andalite warrior. Which meant he was tough and focused. Determined.

Jake began to lift the debris off of Menderash.

"NO! Not yet!" I yelled, jumped, and desperately grabbed Jake's hands from the piece laying on top of Menderash, pushing them away.

Jake looked at me, then down at the items laying on top of Menderash's body. I pointed out the heavy weight... and how his body had been pinched at the abdomen.

I'd seen it before on television, in cases with certain car accidents or train wrecks. I hadn't thought such a thing would even have been possible on a small ship – but I had forgotten just how heavy and dense everything is when you're building spacecraft to deal with the stress of flying through planet atmospheres to get into space. It's not exactly cotton, even when you have access to advanced technology like the Yeerks had. Or even better technology, like the Andalites.

Our friend Menderash was barely alive.

He was not in good condition.

He would die instantly when the pressure was relieved.

Jake saw and nodded, letting go of the piece that had come loose and fallen on top of Menderash – probably a large portion of our navigation console, but everything had been so badly torn I wasn't even sure of that. He got it.

"Menderash," Jake said, "You're conscious because a great amount of pressure is holding your internal organs together right now. When we remove it you will die instantly."

"I... I understand."

"Is there anything you want to tell us? A message for your family? Anything?"

Menderash shook his head. Inside, I was shaken. We had played games and talked during the long and lonely trip aboard the _Rachel_. Me, always trying to explain jokes to him. Him, never getting the jokes like any Andalite warrior I'd ever met.

He had probably been the person I was closest to on the ship other than Jake – and let's face it, Jake had been messed up a long time. Menderash and I hadn't had history, but we'd definitely had the interaction of a good and close friendship.

"Menderash," I said lowly, asking, "Is there nothing we can do for you?"

He tried to answer, but the pain from burns and wounds in his upper body were wearing on him. So he used thought-speak – the natural mode of communication for Andalites, and how all of us could speak when we were morphed.

‹Save... Aximili,› he gasped.

I nodded to Jake. Jake looked back. Tobias had morphed to human: We would need his help as well. But Tobias did use one of his hands to hold Menderash's hands. I've heard everyone dies alone – but no one deserves to die without someone trying to feel close to them.

We worked hard to lift the crashed in part of the spacecraft. We felt it move very slightly.

And then he died instantly.

We tried to get him out from under the part of the control center – at least, I think it was the control center as damaged as it was – but it was too heavy, even with Tobias able to use both his hands to help lift again. We didn't have anywhere to put him even if we could get him out. The airlocks were down. We'd be boarding an enemy spacecraft and going into what was probably a suicide mission.

Tobias was crying, just a little, and I pretended not to notice – knowing I was crying just a little myself. Jake, too, wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"We can't leave him. Marco. Tobias. He's an Andalite. We can't leave him under all this stuff. They're claustrophobic. This isn't right. We have to get him out," Jake said.

"Jake," I muttered, "We don't have a choice. There's nowhere to put him. He knew."

"We can't leave him," Jake pleaded, "We have to get them out."

I wanted to agree with him. Menderash and I had spent a lot of time together. Sometimes he had been a drill seargent, mostly he had been a good friend. After all, as much as I liked Jeanne, she hadn't wanted to have anything to do with me – only a certain amount of jabs about introducing me to her sister were actually funny, and after that I'd realized there was no point in trying to make a bantering Rachel out of the situation. Between Jeanne and Jake, Jake had that department. And Menderash had been the friend Jake hadn't always managed to be lately.

"Shut up."

We stared, shocked, at Tobias.

"Just shut up," Tobias said, "I came on this stupid mission. One or two of us are dead in a cockroach morph. A cockroach, Jake. So just shut up, shut the heck up, and get the job done."

It was probably the most Tobias said since we'd started this journey. And it was the only thing he'd said with any emotion. He wasn't used to facial expressions or speaking with a mouth anymore – so the frustration he felt died mostly when voiced. But you could feel the tense rage coming up from him, emanating and strong.

"I'm demorphing. I'm demorphing and I'm looking for Jeanine or Santorelli or whoever it was that was catapulted in the first impact," Tobias said. And he began his demorph. Jake remained silent.

I was shocked. I thought I could understand Jake and Tobias. At least, I could understand them a little. But obviously the dynamic of our team was going to be changing – Jake with a leadership role less pronounced than before, and Tobias with a more assertive role. Still, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. What I was hearing.

Jake wanted to get through this war without mistakes – an unrealistic expectation. But more than that I thought maybe Menderash trapped in a ship with none of his comrades hurt Jake, hurt him badly because that's what he'd done to Rachel when she died: Left her on a ship alone with his older brother – her cousin. Jake was feeling guilty.

Tobias was less complacent. He used to follow Jake around, back in middle school. Even most of our time as Animorphs he spent being very respectful to Jake, often viewing him with awe. But Jake had betrayed him. Whether Tobias agreed with what Jake did or not strategically wasn't relevant here: It was the realization that Jake wasn't any more of a hero than Tobias was himself.

He was rattled. Shaken by the realization that Jake could be indecisive or wrong as anyone else he spent time with. I guess that's a tough reality when it really hits you the first time.

I could go for that. In fact, I was pretty sure Jake might need Tobias to be antagonizing and contradicting more than he needed anyone else to be. Because Tobias was the one he'd betrayed. Other than Rachel, Tobias was the one Jake had been hoping would attack him since he'd said "Go."

Watching, I saw the reaction it took on Jake.

Jake gave an old man's smile, took a deep breath, and steeled himself. Giving up on moving the console, he instead just closed Menderash's eyes.

"Thanks," I muttered.

I had dealt with friends and family dying before. Jake, too. But even as I was capable of being ruthless I didn't really like handling dead bodies, or feel directly involved with their deaths. After all, I had thought my mother was dead for two years before realizing she had become a Human-Controller. And I thought I had killed her at least twice before I finally managed to make her free again, and bring back home to my dad.

I pushed those thoughts aside.

"Tobias," I called, "Have you found anyone?"

‹Not yet.›

"We could all go hawk or owl to look," Jake said thoughtfully, "Better eyes. We can't have much time to get out of here. We need to look around on the other spacecraft."

"And I'm looking oh-so-forward to getting out of here to look around on the other spacecraft," I muttered dryly.

‹I won't need you guys to help me look. I found another cockroach,› Tobias said, strained.

"Could it be alive?"

‹No. Jake, it flew into a wiring system that caught fire.›

I shuddered. Cockroaches don't feel much, but I had a hard time imagining the fate that person had been through. We had gone through it situations where insect morphs had gotten burnt ourselves and it had not been pleasant.

A short death, though.

It was official: Six had become three.


	4. Chapter Three Tobias

Chapter Three

Tobias

My name is Tobias.

I was a human. Now, I am a red-tailed hawk most of the time.

When I was a human, I hadn't been happy. I was shuttled a lot between my aunt and uncle. I had been bullied. I hadn't known my father or my mother, Loren. Until the war with the Yeerks had started, I hadn't had anything to live for, really. Let alone having anything as great as Rachel.

The war had ended. I had left. Free from Jake, free from everyone. I just lived day by day. Eat or be eaten. The normal life for a red-tail. Remembered Rachel. Hated Jake. Ax, my best friend and uncle by some strange contortion of space-time – had all but been forgotten. He hadn't been on Earth in two years, since the war-time trials in Hague.

Still, when Jake had found me and told me what had happened to Ax, I had to go. He had called me his _shorm_, his best friend.

We had set out. Months had passed, with no sign of Ax, the Blade Ship, or this alien vessel our informant Menderash had explained as attacking Ax's assigned ship.

And here we were. We found the ship. The Blade Ship. But I had seen that... That thing on the communication screen. It had taken Ax's face. The One.

Could Ax even be saved?

Jake had ordered to ram the Blade Ship. Too bad we had forgotten the ship that had attacked the _Intrepid_ had not been the Blade Ship but this older, larger, cruder vessel. We had forgotten about it. No one had seen it anywhere, not even on our sensors. Maybe for the same reason the _Intrepid_ had not known it was a live ship when they found it. I'd have asked Menderash. But he was dead. And Santorelli. And Jeanne. They had died in morph, as cockroaches. So we couldn't even identify their bodies.

Too many dead. And we hadn't even started yet. Our odds weren't looking good.

The air on our own ship was too thin. Everything ravaged. I felt odd, mourning the _Rachel_, but it had been named after her.

We looked around. What Jake had said turned out to be true: We could have easily lost all the air and life support systems on the _Rachel_. She was completely destroyed. But we were a part of this thing's force fields now, within it, and because of that we had kept some air.

I agreed with Marco: The situation smelled bad. It wanted us to board. It wanted to meet us, and I wasn't really looking forward to it.

"We should see if there's a way in," I muttered, "Whether we can grapple in or if we even at least _penetrated_ this thing."

Menderash had said the ship had been large. But that had been compared to the _Intrepid_. Compared to the _Rachel _it was enormous. I couldn't even imagine how something so large and clunky could move so fast – even out in space, it must have taken enormous quantities of energy.

And it hadn't even shown up on the sensors – at least, not enough for Menderash to think there was another ship nearby close enough to intercept our attempt to ram the Blade Ship.

We crawled through debris and shrapnel and other assorted, dangerous pieces of fallen spacecraft to see if we could manage to get in. If we had broken in at our speed at _any_ point. For a long time we didn't have any luck and had started losing hope.

But eventually we found the entrance to our ship. We went to see if we could enter the ship and oddly enough, there was a door for the other ship, on the other side of our door and debris. I shot a look at Jake and Marco.

"It intercepted us, at that speed, and still had time to put us in an area where we'd be able to get in? Without killing us? This is not good," I said.

"It is totally 'not good'," Marco agreed, "In fact, I was just thinking 'not good." Those were my exact thoughts, I will admit. 'Not good.' So 'Not good' I would in fact offer other words to describe the scenario that may not be appropriate for ladies."

Saddened and disillusioned, Marco's rambling actually made all three of us chuckle. Just a little. Even if I never felt like laughing anymore... Well, it was Ax. We had to save him.

"It was Ax's face in the communicator," I said, "Do you think that was really him. Or a trick?"

"Yeah," Marco agreed, "I was wondering about that. If it was him, we might not have any purpose here but to kill that evil creep for... Well... Being evil. But if it was him, and he's on the Blade Ship, then going into this thing isn't going to get us what we want."

"What do you think?" Jake asked Marco. Marco was usually the better strategist, and Jake knew it as well as I did.

"What I think," Marco said darkly, "Is that we have no choice. We can't fly away in the _Rachel_ – it's a dead ship, now. We can't get to the Blade Ship because of that. We're here, and it wants us here, and we have no choice but to go in there and hope we don't give it what it wants even by going inside."

Jake nodded.

"Battle morphs," he said.

"Tobias," he amended, "Morph Andalite. We need firepower, and a hawk morph won't do well inside."

I didn't answer. But I began demorphing. Being a hawk for months aboard the Rachel had been difficult, stressful.

He was right – my body wasn't built for handling spacecrafts or travel.

I saw Jake's tail and paws take form as he morphed a Siberian tiger – his battle morph from the old days. His skin became orange, then took on black stripes, and then his skin seemed to chafe off almost until it reformed into fur.

Hair sprouted and Marco's nose flattened as he grew and began taking the form of a gorilla. His fingers grew large and sausage-like. His legs shortened and his arms elongated.

I felt myself shorten and lost my balance as my legs lost their feet and grew the talons of a bird of prey. I fell backwards, almost. But then my body stretched out lengthwise into more of a bird profile.

Some people have talent for morphing. Cassie always had talent. Ax called people like those _estreens_. But for the rest of us morphing tended to be gross and unpredictable. What I looked like, at best, was a mini-human with a stretched out face and in a rather, well, embarrassing position.

‹Hey Tobias, you're supposed to find a tree or some bushes to hide behind instead of doing that in front of an audience,› Marco called gleefully.

‹Don't make statements you know you're regret later,› I shot back. Marco didn't get it. I wasn't in the mood for his stupid jokes anymore. I hadn't been in the mood for anything.

Jake was fully tiger. Marco was a gorilla. I was a red-tailed hawk.

I began morphing again, to the morph of Ax I had from old days. I felt uncomfortable taking on Ax's form. For all I knew... Though I didn't want to believe it... Ax was dead.

Ax could be dead, and I felt frustration and anger that I was taking his form. Permission or not I felt like I was performing some sort of desecration toward him. But I didn't want to think like that. I pushed it out of my mind. If I was assuming he was dead... Well, I wanted to be totally sure before I started thinking like he was. I couldn't lose Ax, too.

I didn't know much about the world, but life had been unfair enough already. I wasn't going to let someone take Ax if I could help it. If he could be rescued, he was going to be rescued.

Then I'd probably have to give him a piece of my mind for continuing a military career and putting his life in danger.

I wasn't exactly sure whether we saw each other as family close enough to do that. And I hadn't had much experience with the family thing, period. My life as a human had always sucked pretty badly. But I was going to try. I didn't hang onto anyone's existence for my survival anymore, but that didn't mean I wanted everyone to meet some tragic end.

I was through with tragic endings. Ax wasn't going to give me another to add to my collection.

_God, stop whining_, I thought privately to myself. It was one of the hardest things about deciding to come after Ax. I hadn't had to think too much when I was on my own, living like a hawk. Everything had been easy in my territory, just regular laws of the wild. I was tired of all the thinking I had to do. Thinking about the group dynamic, thinking about what happened to Ax. I'd been doing it for months now and it hadn't exactly been easy.

At the same time, it was hard to imagine going back. It'd been months. I'd had to be in morph a lot of the time. I'd had to interact with people – at least, people other than Jake who mostly seemed to leave me alone.

Hard to interact, hard to not interact. What was I going to do?

‹Not time,› I muttered, ‹Think about it later.›

‹Think about what later?› Marco.

‹Never mind.›

I grew two arms, two extra sets of legs, and I shot up as my legs lengthened. My torso came in afterward, and then the head that was more human-shaped, but with no mouth. Three vertical slits – my nose – grew into my face. My eyes became larger but my sight dimmed as I traded my hawk eyes for Andalite main eyes.

Throughout all of this I had for some reason kept my hawk wings and basic body shape. I had a really short body with a torso crammed into one end and four legs all crammed together beneath a bird body. But then, finally, my deer-like section below the torso grew outward with my hind legs moving back to accommodate the change.

Eyes grew on top of my head in stalks that could move in different directions. My tail and blade suddenly shot out behind me, long, strong, deadly. Feathers traded themselves for the blue and tan fur of a young Andalite. The deer-like ears grew at the side of my head.

Finally, it was done. I was an Andalite. Ax's body. Well, Ax's body from a few years back. He'd grown, of course. He was an adult Andalite now like Cassie and Jake and Marco were adult humans. Like I was an older red-tailed hawk.

But Ax's body and DNA nonetheless.

For a moment, we stood there. Almost waiting for something to come up at _us_, even though we all knew that wasn't the way The One seemed to plan on handling it. So far every encounter with the Blade Ship and with The One had been a surprise.

I knew Jake was tired of being made a fool. That was okay.

So was I.

‹Let's go,› Jake said.

The opening was so full of melted apart outer hull – and so much general wreckage from our impact – that it took some digging to get through, still. We had to go one at a time. I had hands and could literally see like I had eyes at the back of my head – because, well, I could just by pointing my stalk eyes that way. So I went first. Carefully, to avoid scraping.

I saw through to the other side.

‹I can see out the door,› I said, ‹It's like a hall, I guess. Sort of wide but it's not a storage area or a transport area. Just a hall to get from one section of the ship to the other.›

I stepped out. Looked around, with all my eyes going.

Nothing. No signs of life. I knew that was a lie, but I couldn't see anything dangerous.

_Just remember that that was the problem that got Ax into trouble_, I thought grimly.

‹I can't see anything dangerous, guys. I know there's got to be something out there, but I can't see it!› I called, frustrated.

‹It's okay. We're coming out.›

Jake came next, trying to make room ahead of him for Marco. I went around and used my tail to try to cut through some debris. Marco got through eventually – but his morph was bulkier and less graceful, so it had been slightly cut.

‹This is strangely quiet and peaceful for a place of death and destruction,› Marco said giddily, ‹Maybe we have the wrong address. Did someone get the Icup name in their address book again?›

But he looked around, at the same time.

So did I.

‹That way,› I said, gesturing to my left, ‹It's dark, but I can tell there's a door. Thinner than the one on the other side. I think the thicker one might lead to a cargo bay. The thinner one probably leads to a place with crew or passengers – no need to make it big enough for pulling cargo through.›

‹Good idea. Okay, let's keep going.›

‹And don't forget: The last time anyone came through here they thought there wasn't a fight,› Marco said, ‹We know there is one. So let's stay ready. Maybe Tobias should be at the back so he can keep guard behind us.›

I moved back behind them, talk eyes turned, talk as ready as I could keep it. I wasn't experienced at using the Andalite body, really. But I hadn't been really used to any body other than hawk. Even my human body felt strange and clunky to me, for the most part. But I had been that way before I had ever become a _nothlit_. Never fitting into place or feeling comfortable with myself. It was part of the package.

At least, it was part of _my_ package.

I tried to stop focusing on that. We were looking for Ax.

I needed to be ready.

As we reached the hallway, the door opened automatically. It wasn't fancy, like an Andalite spacecraft would have been. Just an automatic door, mostly like what you would see at any retail store on Earth. Not too high-tech, not too low-tech. In a lot of ways it was strange how the ship seemed anything but intimidating. A lot of the things on it seemed more or less normal to human sensibilities – when we had been dealing with Yeerks on our planet, we'd always come across Gleet Biofilters which used DNA scanning to prevent us from getting in, or other crazy things that humans weren't really close to achieving technologically.

But I could tell we were all worried that whatever was on this ship didn't even think we were a threat enough to lock the doors.

We searched. Tense, close, jumping at shadows. But we saw nothing through any doors. We didn't run into what Marco had dubbed the Play-Doh man, or Human-Controllers, or anything else that would have normally started a fight with us.

I felt like we were being watched. But no matter what I saw, nothing.

We kept walking in one direction, hoping to find the bridge of the spacecraft. Our plan was pretty simple: Charge. We had no home base to go to. We were light years from home. We could have morphed bugs and searched indefinitely – we probably could hide on the ship forever if we really tried.

But it would have been fooling ourselves. We couldn't go anywhere with our ship in its state. To go home – let alone save anyone – we were at "kill or be killed." And that simplicity to me was almost a relief. I understood that. I lived that every day, most of the time.

I was either coming, or I was going.

Roaming, we eventually decided it was too close to the deadly two hour limit that had trapped me in hawk morph years ago. Since I had four eyes I was given watch while Jake and Marco demorphed and remorphed. I waited, anxious as they became human as fast as possible.

I wanted my wings.

"Okay," Jake said, "Let's keep going."

But before they could think of starting again...

BANG! BANG! BANGBANBANGBANGBANG!

Overwhelming noise, everywhere. And my eyes straining in the dark could barely make sense of what was happening as it seemed the walls in every direction rushed at me.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

‹AHHHHHHHHHHHH!›

It was maybe ten seconds. But even in that ten seconds I could feel myself losing consciousness.

_No_, I thought, _No._

I was light-years from Earth, in a body that wasn't my own.

And I was losing everything.


	5. Chapter Four Leah

**Chapter Four**

**Leah**

My name is Leah.

I'm an awkward person. An in-between person, really. Not that great, not that shabby? But I liked to think I was more or less friendly. Well meaning.

I was a lot of things, actually. Not just my organizations, or my family, my hobbies or anything else in particular. I was a lot of things. A past.

And ultimately I was a person who was enslaved when I entered The Sharing for a term of volunteer service. One of many other Human-Controllers.

I couldn't even blink unless my Yeerk, Essat-Nine-Seven-Eight, sent the command.

When "she" fed – I was caged. At first I screamed and cried. I fought viciously, even though she could always turn it on me ten times worse. I tried to kill myself, but there was never a way to die fast enough, down in the Yeerk Pool. Eventually, after months went by, I had given up. She had struck in a way that had completely broken me. She had all the power. She had my memories. She had taken away my own history. My soul, or whatever it is that makes me who I am.

Later, she defected from the Yeerk Empire with other Yeerks. And I, of course, had to go.

Essat had been irritated with her lack of development. She'd wanted something new. She'd been assigned to my body as a lowly Yeerk, but when the _Escafil_ device had been acquired by the Yeerk Empire she had been excited. So had I, really. When you're a host body to a Yeerk the last thing you want to be is yourself. But there was a problem.

I touched the _Escafil_ device. I focused. That is to say, Essat made me focus. But to be honest, as miserable as I was, it made me excited, this idea of becoming someone else. Not excited in a hopeful way, but a way that can really only be explained when the monotonous means you can't escape your own mind. It was change, and in a way hard to explain, it did at least stir my spirit into almost remembering: I was still there. I still existed, somewhere.

But I became violently ill when the box activated. My body was rejecting... Whatever the _Escafil _device does to people. I was declared allergic to the morphing technology. Of all the humans that had touched the blue cube - I was the first with an allergic reaction.

Essat fought bitterly for a new host body. But her requests fell on deaf ears. She was not a particularly useful Yeerk. Not in intelligence or in combat, where the morphing power was most important. When she heard the news of a group of Yeerks defecting to start a new empire, she immediately enlisted, hoping to get recognition she had never particularly deserved.

But a new Empire meant a new host body.

I tuned out for much of the travel on the Blade Ship. We spent a lot of the time in Zero-Space, an anti-space zone that can be used to get through points a ship otherwise would take generations to travel to. There had been nothing but white. And when the Yeerks traveled through regular space they had to be careful to avoid the Andalites.

So the Yeerks went, dragging us along, to the end of Andalite space. The Yeerks were using politics. They didn't like the Andalites. The _Kelbrid_ didn't like the Andalites. And they had a treaty absolutely forbidding Andalites to cross into their borders. So we were going to use that – make friends with the _Kelbrid_, infest them, start a new empire without the Andalites ever even aware of it until suddenly every _Kelbrid_ was invading the Andalite Home World.

Essentially it was the go-to strategy of the last Yeerk Empire, at least, in my opinion.

At the border, we ran into The One. More specifically, The One ran into us. The Yeerks had found a dead ship and investigated to see if there was good weaponry aboard. Essat had been allowed to go first, having my expendable body.

I was positively gleeful at her dismay.

‹I don't care if I die,› I told her only through my thoughts, ‹I'll die knowing every Yeerk here is going to get what they deserve. Look at the size of that craft! Out in the middle of space, and you're walking in like it's an opened present. You Yeerks are fools.›

I felt her tension, but she didn't let up. She didn't really have a choice: Exhibiting cowardice would be a death sentence of Kandrona starvation, which is the most excruciating death a Yeerk can face. But she knew like everyone else aboard that dead spaceships are bad news.

We boarded. We found no life. The others boarded. And in time I could barely recollect later we had been taken into some other thing I knew of now as The One.

Some of the other Human-Controllers and I had been vaguely aware of time on the outside of the universe it had created, for a while. Until our Yeerks died and we were left alone with The One. Other Yeerks had been kept, to operate The Blade Ship.

Other people would die, in games. Other times, I'd see them die and I knew they were gone for good. Mostly, though, I was just gone.

Time passed indefinitely.

At some point, I don't know which, I began feeling things again. More aware. I felt time, for what seemed like a very short while. Maybe even my body out of the confines of wherever it had been taken by The One. And suddenly, I was not alone.

There were two Andalites. And one of the Andalites, almost as suddenly, became a man about my age. Or at least, the age my body should have been, physically.

Aximili – the Andalite trapped as a human while in the delusion created by The One – came up and greeted me. Spoke to me. His friend, Ondrean, was allowed to be with us most of the time at first – but after a few games The One instead mostly left just Aximili and I together.

In a way, I had been relieved. Even though I knew Ondrean was not Visser One, and that Andalites were a peaceful species... They were intimidating. And it was difficult being around two people who could talk academic circles around me every day. It was mean, but I was a bit glad that now there was only one person to speak with. Glad I had a chance for some social relationship for however long it lasted, until it was my time to go.

Though Aximili claimed his friends would come and rescue us.

I tried to avoid talking about my past, and Aximili didn't pry. I tried not to in return, but it was hard. See, I knew, even though he hadn't told me, that he had somehow saved my life. So I wanted to be as little of a hindrance as possible. At the same time, he had saved my life. So I owed him whatever I could provide. I wanted to be friends, somehow. Whatever that even was – I wasn't sure I remembered.

I felt... I don't know. Like I should have been doing something. Learn about him, or see what we could do to make our stay here less of a pain.

And I felt like being human was awkward for him. Uncomfortable.

I knew he'd spent lots of time on Earth as part of the war against the Yeerks, stranded. Partly because we'd known there had been one Andalite amongst the Animorphs. Partly because he told me. I did try to get him to talk about being an Andalite as he tried to train me to use weapons for the games The One would play. I tried to let him vent about being stuck in this world as a human. At least, I did at first.

A lot of the time though, for a few months or whatever time we were following in this world, Aximili would actually end up bringing humans into the discussion himself.

"When I was on earth, I loved cinnamon buns. Prince Jake and the others..." Prince Jake, Prince Jake, Prince Jake. Or Tobias, or Marco, or Cassie, or Rachel. Aximili couldn't seem to get an intellectual rise from talking to me, so eventually he turned to talking more _at_ me to cope with what must have felt like being the only intelligent being around.

I swear I might as well have been a part of their team the whole war.

When I hadn't been infested – when I had been a free person, so long ago I really couldn't even remember not being enslaved – I had never gotten along well with people socially. I had wanted to, but I could never figure out how. And I'd always had the problem of making friends with people who already had too deep an intimate history with each other. So hearing him talk about the Animorphs was way harder for me than sitting back and listening to stories about his youthful days on the Andalite Home world.

"Why did you leave Earth, then, Aximili? Why go back into the field?" I had finally asked, irritated and aiming toward a target with the idea of having a Shredder in my hand. Dream? Hallucination? Delusion? I didn't know, but I did know we both saw Shredders. Both shot Shredders, in this cruel but amazing world.

I had gotten much better at aiming with Shredders. Ondrean was better, but I thought maybe I was starting to exit the novice stage.

"I am Andalite," Aximili said strongly.

"An Andalite that seems completely focused on being human."

Aximili gave me an uncharacteristically long sideways glance. Like he was debating on handling whether I could handle what he was about to tell me.

Odd, how quickly he had gotten used to this human body of his. He said his real morph wasn't this age – but that The One had apparently made it seem so. Still, the odd thing was seeing him use human looks so effectively. Not fluently, but more effectively than you'd expect an alien.

There was a secret. And I was tired of secrets. We had not been around anyone else, for months as far as we knew, maybe even years – except Ondrean. And we only saw Ondrean in the game.

"Well?" I continued. I didn't think I could handle more talk about the Animorphs today. I needed something new, something that had nothing to do with the past I already knew about. "You might as well tell me. There's no one else around. Ondrean only sees us on battle days anymore, and we don't speak to each other anyway. Everyone else is dead. And who am I going to tell? I have no one. "

_Unlike you,_ I added silently. We were both banking on the idea that his friends would help save us.

I guess he'd decided my point was valid because he paused, considering.

"It was my family. My people," He said, finally. After what had felt like months of being human and mouth-speaking, he'd mostly seemed to stop entirely playing with the sounds our human mouths make.

"When I went back to my home planet, I tried for a while to assimilate back into Andalite culture. But I had been gone three human years."

"More," he added, "If you include my temporary post as Liaison to the humans and the trial against Visser One. Five human years or so. With mostly contact among humans, not Andalites. And I never could get fully back into my home culture. I really felt part human, as well. I was human, too. Now..."

He paused like the next sentence would be difficult.

"Even now, years later. See me now? While I am Andalite, and proud of my heritage... You can notice I act the part more than other Andalites. I am not _just_ a human morph," he emphasized strongly, "I _feel_ human. And that was a problem for me. My family. And my people."

I nodded, like I got it. In a way I thought I could relate if I tried comparing it to groups of friends I had spent time with in the past – not always pleasing my family, but never fully able to just quit and come back to them, either. How they disliked it when I had grown comfortable with people who they had decided were a bad influence, even when we had all moved on from each other.

"When I went home, I found I could not relate to my family. My parents. I kept talking about Earth. My father and mother were afraid I'd leave. I had told them about Elfangor's trip to Earth. About their grandchild. They had not yet been given the _Hirac Delest_ – the data on it had been declared classified. The Andalite military had not wanted to be embarrassed, or shun Elfangor's name. So his behavior was to be left, not reported, until later.

"Andalites do not believe that sort of behavior is appropriate. Even though I am – or was - close to Tobias more than any human or Andalite, it was hard to accept that Elfangor would have betrayed his people in a way that goes so deep. Giving up not just Andalite culture, but the Andalite body, as well. They – my parents especially - were concerned about my close connection that tied only to humans. And they were worried I would end up leaving and finding life out there."

Aximili stared out, contemplative. I listened more carefully than most of what he had said all these... Weeks? Months? Years? However long we had been out here.

I could listen to it without hurting.

"My father spoke with me and demanded I give up my post. And I hadn't been around my human friends in so long..." He drifted away again.

"Do you think they'll come, Aximili?" I whispered, "Jake and the others? Will they come? Will we be freed?"

I clung to the idea that his friends, the Animorphs, would rescue us. I had gone from one slavery to another. I was tired. I was tired of slavery and I would give up anything to be free of it. He had told me, a long time back, that his friends would come. And that they might be able to save us from this universe.

Would we see them? Would we gain our freedom? I wanted so badly to believe it could be today, or tomorrow. I wondered how much longer I could live off of hope.

For the first time, Aximili seemed to really see me, at least a little. Enough to know that I was a real person, even if I wasn't always the most intelligent or skilled. Even if I hadn't been in the war like his friends had.

He looked at me, solemnly.

But even as he said and spoke it with every ounce of hope in his body, I saw shadows hidden in his eyes. My eyes were not as strong as his friend Tobias. But they didn't have to be strong to see the doubt underneath his bravado. He was sheltering me, the person who had been enslaved for years, but mostly the civilian. He was trying to carry the doubt because he was the soldier.

"They will come."

I nodded. I knew not to take him at his word. In a way I appreciated that he was trying to treat me as a friend and not as a one-way communicator. But also frustrated: This was my war, too. We were both trapped here. Both stuck fighting. Still, I wanted to believe, like a kid just realizing maybe some of the stuff they're told as a kid is just to make them feel better – instead of being the truth. Reality.

From that day on, we had gotten more close. I tried to explain human music, he tried to explain what it was like to morph. I'd teach him human games – soccer or baseball or basketball – and he would show me some techniques used in Andalite art. He could explain to me more than the other way around – I had been young when I was infested.

Honestly, I didn't know much. And what I explained, I realized sadly, tended to come off like a kid, not an informed or grown-up lesson like a teacher or anyone else. But to my relief, Aximili didn't let that frustrate or irritate him. And he didn't let on that he felt any pity.

Other than the games, time went by slowly. The One's universe outside the games – recreated battles of Aximili's past – was easily shaped. We could even do it ourselves, once we had started realizing it. Food, entertainment, parks, trees... It was all the creation of our own memories and wishes. And the world became a mixture of Andalite and human places and species. I could see what a Guide Tree was, or how Andalites had spread their work out so thin with a few factories in between for the purpose of keeping grass to graze.

I created a playground. Since it was based on my memories, everything was larger so that it would feel the same as when I had played on them as a kid. Aximili didn't play on the playground. I wondered if that was wrong, for me. Maybe it was the kid thing to do. But I didn't know what I could be wishing for that would be better.

I couldn't show Aximili as much of my own planet that he hadn't already seen. He'd lived on Earth for years. But I showed him famous pieces of architecture as if they were there. And religious gatherings. Or things on human culture. My favorite sports, like kayaking or soccer or football. Camping.

I think since I hadn't read the _World Almanac_ he had gotten the idea that I had never stepped inside a classroom. But I knew my subjects really well. The ones that had interested me before Essat had come into my life. I just don't know _all _subjects really well. Actually, beyond the things I liked I was probably a dunce, but still, I did know enough about other things to surprise him.

"I told you I study," I said smugly.

More recently we had taken to learning board games. I taught him chess and checkers. He tried to teach me _Haana Lu. _It was a game a little like marbles with a twist of jacks: Aiming with thumb and forefingers a small ball would be flipped through the air to try to hit and push these small square objects out of circles etched out onto the ground.The small squares had to be hit from the air as they were being dropped.

After a while I felt like I was starting to understand it. I knew Aximili was playing easy for me to make sure I was understanding the rules. But I at least understood most of the rules the rules. With a little time to remember the process, anyway – like any new game.

The game ended, Aximili leading, and we began to set up a new game. Or at least, Aximili did because he didn't trust me quite yet to set it up myself. But then we weren't there anymore.

Suddenly, in the way The One did when initiating a challenge, we were in what we had started to call Scenarios – because at their simplest that was all they were. I saw bows, and quivers full of arrows hanging on a shelf. On the other side, targets, some moving, others not. The One, immersing itself, took on the form of a human.

"She" tossed her head and smiled at us mockingly.

"The game today," The One said, "Is a target setting based on the human idea of archery. Decide who will shoot, and the game will begin."


	6. Chapter Five Aximili

**Chapter Five**

**Aximili**

The One had come to us. Leah, Ondrean and I were suddenly immersed into another one of its games. This game was new, not based on memories from me or Ondrean. Instead, it was based off of an idea in Leah's head.

‹Prince Aximili,› Ondrean addressed me courteously, ‹I believe I can operate these primitive weapons.›

‹And,› he added with a look at Leah I could not read, ‹I am sure we could all do so. However, as you know I surpass you in target practice.›

I nodded at Ondrean, "Yes, I think it would be wisest to --"

"Hey! No, I want to try! I can do archery." Leah interceded me.

Ondrean gave her a glare I could now easily recognize as disdainful. It stopped Leah in her tracks. Ondrean was used to people treating me like a hero. Leah, with her often childlike interjections, struck him as offensive. Annoying.

‹Ondrean,› I stressed privately, ‹Please recall this is a human civilian.›

‹Civilian or not, she knows this is a war and that you are the highest rank! And we have better things to do than to cave into her wishes to take a turn. We have to focus on getting out of here,› he scoffed. But he remained silent to her. Thought-speak can be directed at one person or small group of people – private. Or it can be open, for everyone in range to hear. And he had been kind enough to use private thought-speak in that instance.

I took a deep breath. Looked to the shelves with the items that Andalites were not entirely unfamiliar with, but were definitely of Earth style. I considered her Shredder practice. She was becoming a fairly good shot.

Still... These forms of weapons tended to be more difficult to aim. And she was not as good with firearms as Ondrean, anymore than I was.

I was an imperfect teacher, considering I spent years on her own planet fighting with only my tail blade in most situations.

"Leah," I said quietly, "I have to give the shot to the one with the most established shot. It is our easiest chance in a challenge yet."

"No, you don't understand," she sighed, exasperated, "Bows and arrows aren't easy to shoot, they take lots of --"

‹Quiet, human.›

Ondrean spoke quietly, but I could hear the anger. His tail shivered a little, with restraint to stay amiably raised, going up just enough to help give off the tone of a near threat that any Andalite would understand.

Leah was not an Andalite. And she was not good at reading Andalite tones or expressoins. Even so I could see her back away from Ondrean's tail. Only a fool would not have seen it as an open threat.

‹We are the warriors. We are the warriors, you are the civilian. I will take up the competition. _You_ will sit out. You will sit out, you will stop acting like a princess, and you will respect my Prince as the leader in this_ military_ situation we are in.›

I was appalled. Frustrated. Ondrean had gone specifically against my orders to keep her status in either human or Andalite culture in mind: An ex-controller. A refugee, of sorts, since she had been stranded on Earth. .She was to be treated respectfully, with an awareness that what she had been through would have some side effects. Be given the opportunity to try and assimilate with others again. To cope.

Did he really believe I was trying to defend her place in the world as a civilian badly enough to risk our chance of freedom? That I would cave into her wishes as if she were a spoiled child? And if so, how would I get the chance to speak with Ondrean privately? The One did not allow us to interact as Andalites or even friends anymore – it hadn't for months.

None of us had won a competition yet. None of us had beat The One. And this was one of the few situations Leah could participate in, really, because she was incapable of morphing. Even with Shredders to fire, she usually had to remain hidden in our challenges.

Injuries during the challenges left us affected by them for what felt as long as recovery time in reality – with the exception that so far, The One had not let anyone die. The increasingly tense dynamic had kept the beast entertained.

I considered, also, that this was one competition Leah did not have to hold back on, being timid for the sake of protecting anyone from having to rescue her in a bad battle scenario.

"Aximili," Leah pleaded quietly, calling me by my complete first name – something my human friends had never done. "Aximili, please, trust me. I can do that."

In leadership positions during war-time, decisions can cause lasting influence on those who look up to you.

They can be life or death decisions. And they can ruin relationships. Friendships.

I still had to use the logic that made sense.

"No, Leah," I said firmly, "Ondrean is correct. I must use the one with the more experienced hand in this."

"Even though," I added, gritting my human teeth, "I do not agree with the behavior and the attitude that goes against the authority Ondrean claims to be defending."

He glared at me. I would have to try to figure out what that problem was later.

Leah, too, turned away, ignoring me.

Would I be alone even in company because of my choices?

Ondrean moved on, swiftly pulling out a bow and quiver full of arrows. He aimed.

_Flit!_

Again.

_Flit!_

Again.

_ Flit!_

Excitement surged through my hearts. He had four more to go!

_Flit!_

_ Flit!_

_ Flit!_

_ Flit!_

We all cheered, even Leah. We had passed.

But now it was The One's turn. She grinned, cocky.

_Flit!FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!_

In almost simultaneous shots The One had made every one of the targets.

Ondrean almost staggered from the shock.

The One laughed, easily making every shot presented.

"Well?" she said amiably, glancing at everyone in emotional unease, "What did you think? It was a nicer game for all of you, don't you think? Round two?"

And we reappeared in another setting. More targets this time, and more moving.

"_Aximili_," Leah pressed in a quiet but respectful voice, trying to keep out of Ondrean's hearing range. Not that it worked. "Aximili, _I can make these shots._"

‹Really! Does she take us for fools?› said Menderash, ‹We have a chance at winning.› He pulled his quiver over his shoulder and drew a bow into his arrow. He released.

_Flit!_

_ Flit!_

_ Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!_

_ Flit!_

_ Flit!_

_ Flit!_

Ondrean paused to take aim for the target in the form of a flying disc.

_Flit!_

The arrow sailed harmlessly passed. Ondrean's tail and eyes betrayed his relaxed stance. He was crestfallen. The One, in a display that lacked any special character, easily hit every target in a matter of seconds.

I turned behind me, not having been made Andalite for this task, and saw Leah fuming behind me.

"And I believe my work here is done... For now," The One laughed as Ondrean disappeared and Leah and I were returned to our own retrospective places.

_Perhaps I should apologize_, I thought.

It was not something generally done by an Andalite captain, not even when one was in the wrong. Still, Leah was not Andalite. Or in the military. And I _hadn't_ listened.

I, on the other hand, was not human.

But this was off-time. And Leah and I had been trying to become friends.

I began walking toward where I knew Leah would be. But as I crossed the hill, I saw that she had made her own field for target practice.

Including a rather nice Andalite effigy for the last target that moved back and forward on a mix of rope and motor.

_Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!Flit!_

Leah hit the targets up front, the targets higher up, the smaller targets, the Andalite effigy, and a flying disc target. In less than a minute.

I reeled on my feet.

"Why... Why didn't you tell me you were an archer?" I said shakily.

"Should I have to?" Leah snapped, "Oh sure, I tried to tell you. As little as you were listening. But even if I hadn't: This is my war too. So shouldn't I have been given a chance?"

Leah dropped her things on the ground and ran. I considered letting her go.

But she was right. Not mature about the scenario. But correct that I had not listened.

Ondrean had shown normal Andalite disdain toward her status as both a human and a civilian, and an ex-controller. Had told her she needed to step out of the way of the warriors. Even though I was trying to be her friend, at times, I treated her like a civilian, another part of the war. More often than that, I treated her like a child – which, though she was one mentally, that was the fault of infestation and not something I should let continue. The point when encountering ex-Controllers was supposed to be helping, not enabling, the stunted behavior hosts could have, to integrate them into human society.

She had been entertainment only, and not someone I had considered the well-being for – beyond her life. It didn't matter that she was not an experienced veteran: Experienced veterans only become so by fighting. And this had been a game in the form of a drill: Nothing dangerous where Leah had needed to hide because she was unable to morph – something The One had not felt like correcting in our imaginary world.

I began walking faster.

Around me, the world seemed to shake, to melt. Everything changed momentarily.

There were a few times I had felt this happen.

It had rarely been good. Usually, it had been accompanied by The One's disposal of some of its living game pieces.

Leah.

"Leah!" I yelled. I began running as the "world" started raining.

_ Stupid, Aximili. Use thought-speak._

Slowly, on my two ungainly human legs, I ran through the world, attempting to find Leah. Worried that she or Ondrean had been removed, for good, by The One. Leah, who had not been free in years. Or Ondrean, the last of my Andalite team.

It was suddenly darker. I was tired, but I kept running. The blood pounded through my one heart.

My human heart.

I couldn't see, the world was shifting so much. The One had momentarily diverted its attention, and as a result the world around us waned. I had to keep going. I was afraid I was losing someone else. But suddenly...

CRASH!

As everything cleared I collided into something that had come up too suddenly for my human legs to stop.

He was an Andalite.

He looked very much like a younger me.

‹Ax? Is... Is that really _you_?› I heard Tobias whisper.


	7. Chapter Six Jake

**Chapter Six**

**Jake**

Marco, Tobias and I had all regained consciousness – or its illusion – out on a field.

"Do you see this?" I asked Marco.

"Oh, yeah. I definitely see this."

Everything was strange, somehow. Shifty. Dark, melted. A place you might expect a thing like The One to be. _Play-Doh Man,_ I corrected myself. No reason to give it a name scarier than it deserved.

I looked over at Tobias. For a second, I didn't even register that anything was wrong – all the proof I needed that this world, wherever I was, was not quite real. But then I saw it.

Marco saw it at about the same time.

He was still in Andalite morph.

"TOBIAS! DEMORPH!" We shouted at the same time. Tobias woke, tried to flare, and rolled up. For a moment, he paused.

‹I-I can't demorph?› he whispered.

Before I could stop him, tell him we could make sense of this mess, Tobias turned and galloped away. I didn't know if our situation was real, or fake, or if Tobias was still in morph – or if he wouldn't be able to demorph when we got back. But we couldn't afford to get lost. Wherever we were...

Wherever we were, whatever this was, we had to find a way out. And hopefully get Ax.

"Tobias!" I cried out. But I couldn't even see him anymore in this shifting place.

"This place is so strange," Marco said, "Do you think this is any form of reality? I mean, look – those aren't Earth trees. But those are. And look up."

I did. The sky didn't look that abnormal. But we had two moons. And the sky was colored oddly. It felt like a mixture of Earth and what Ax had long ago described as the Andalite Home World. He and others in his military had offered to let us visit their homeworld, but we'd refused back then, after Visser One's trial.

Loneliness hit me hard, suddenly.

But it wasn't just those things that made the world so strange. There were things that shouldn't have been there. Or things that just were out of place in the situation. No roads, but restaurants. A house, but no driveway. We felt rain, saw lightning, heard thunder. Everything felt incredibly real, but not the placement or timing of anything. Nothing was right. Nothing was where it belonged. And because of the mixing of two worlds, everything had seemed even further off.

"I hope we find him," I said quietly.

"Who, Tobias?" Marco asked before he looked at my face.

"Him, too, but I more meant Ax."

"Oh, yeah. Well, if anyone can find and rescue Ax – it's the Animorphs."

I sighed. We needed to start a search party. It was time to go ahead and morph.

"Let's morph owl. We might be able to see Tobias or anyone else from up there."

"Yeah," Marco agreed.

We focused. Nothing happened.

"Yikes!" Marco said. "Well, it's too bad Tobias ran off before we tried morphing. So maybe he's completely fine."

I shook my head. "I don't think... I don't think we're really anywhere," I admitted, "Can't you feel it? I think everything about this place is fake. Which means Tobias is still in Andalite morph... Somewhere. Probably. The question is, does the time limit apply in this case? Are we just unconscious? Or is this something deeper?"

Wherever this place was... The problems it had created were building up. I felt stress slabbing off onto my shoulders. Everything about this place felt ominous. Dangerous. I wasn't quite sure how dangerous it was, yet.

Still, the world seemed to settle down, after a while. Marco and I walked off into the darkness. Calling out to Tobias. Since we couldn't morph, we couldn't use thought-speak. But I hoped at some point we would run into him.

We passed more trees. Some strange grasses. More woods here, more restaurants there. A house, at one point. And at another point, a scoop.

Marco and I could have stopped, but I was uneasy. Fortunately, he was on edge, too. Being stuck in a fantasy is fun – when you know for sure where you are. But it was something we _didn't_ know. And it reminded me of the times where we'd been transported suddenly to different worlds, by the Ellimist or the Time Matrix or by weird morphing flukes.

Whatever was going on, who was to say the experiences weren't real?

So we kept calm. Marco and I just kept walking. Looking for anyone, or anything, that could explain this place. Maybe even looking for Ax.

"Hey!" I heard Marco yelp suddenly.

"What?" I asked irritably. I had been thinking about how nice sleep would have been.

"Just... I can't explain it. I thought I saw... Just follow me!"

Marco took off. I chased after him.

I was getting exhausted. But as I caught up with Marco, I saw that we were chasing a girl. A young woman, really. Our age. And for a split second, I thought: _Rachel?_

Impossible, of course. The girl was brown-haired and didn't have the same figure at all. Average legs, built thicker. But we had no reason to not catch up to her. We needed someone who knew this place better than us. Whoever she was... She'd have been here – wherever "here" was – longer. I kicked up the pace and began to try and get her attention.

"Hey!" I called, "Hey! Stop! Please stop!"

I was totally out of shape. We'd been on a spacecraft for months before finding the Blade Ship. I could barely get the words out. My chest ached.

Was this really a dream?

Still, the girl slowed. Stopped. Turned around and stared at us with large brown eyes, shocked. Quickly, she jogged back up to us. She gave us a long look, one that seemed to try to see inside us as well as just who we were.

"Who are you?" this girl demanded of both of us. She was our age, but I couldn't help but think of her as a girl. Just part of my veteran experience – I couldn't seem to relate to the people my age.

"Jake," I said, "And this one is Marco."

She stared. A weird look, like she had been expecting us, but not believing we'd ever come. Like we were Santa Clause or something.

"You're really Jake?" she asked me.

"You know, your own name or how you know ours would be -," Marco started, but I silenced him with my hand. Not trying to be rude to him, but trying to get answers from her were more important than etiquette 101 at the moment.

"Yes. I am Jake," I said, "Can I ask who you are?"

The girl blushed. She obviously hadn't meant to be rude with her over-active excitement.

"My name is Leah," she said, "I was one of the Human-Controllers on the Blade-Ship-"

Marco tried to grab her arms to hold her down.

"Yeerk! You're the stupid reason we're in this -"

"Hey! I said _was_, you stupid son-of-a-"

"Quiet! Quiet, please. Marco, stop that," I said as he kept trying to grab her and hold her down – like she had even been trying to grab anyone. "Okay, you're an ex-Controller. That would explain why you're here. Maybe you can explain to us. What is this place? And who were you running from? How were you freed?"

Leah looked at me, her expression fierce. But it softened.

"This is the place where everything that is _isn't_," Leah murmured sadly, adapting a quote from _Alice in Wonderland_. "I don't know much about it myself. It's artificial, a creation of The One. It froze most of us, but only kept necessary Yeerks for operating the Blade Ship remotely. At least, for a long time.

"My Yeerk was, fortunately, expendable. But everything here is just another world of enslavement."

"As for who I was running from..." Leah continued, "I think, maybe, I should just take you there instead. It's a surprise."

She grinned, looking more like the kid I would have thought than someone my age, and turned to walk back where she had come from.

I wasn't sure how to take all this information. It felt overwhelming. I had thought this world was fake. But I didn't get exactly what it was, and I saw Leah had no intentions of telling me more until we followed her back. Maybe it was just too long a story. I was still worried about Tobias...

"My friend," I said, "He was upset by... Something... And he ran off. Is he in danger here?"

"No, there's no danger in off-time. And even in a Scenario he would know what the danger was before he started, probably," She looked curiously at Marco and me, as if really looking at us for the first time. "Do you know where he is?"

_Do you know _who _he is?_ I thought curiously. I was so confused by everything. This girl was being so cryptic. She seemed clearly to think she knew who we wanted to see, and I felt annoyed. This was an emergency and she was trying to treat useful information like some sort of surprise party. Really, we just wanted to know, we wanted to know now, and go through none of the bull. Unless she was trying to make sure we knew as little as possible. Either for our safety or to cause us more harm than we'd already had today.

And I wasn't sure which it was.

But Marco and I weren't getting anything more from Leah, who was walking the other way.

"This place just gets weirder and weirder," Marco muttered under his breath to me, "And I think this girl here might just happen to be weirdest at the moment."

I agreed with Marco, right then. But we needed answers. And she thought we'd like knowing who had been following her.

And so, we started to follow Leah back from where she had started from.


	8. Chapter Seven Marco

Chapter Seven

Marco

We followed Leah.

And when she got back to where she came from, Tobias – And Ax, in his human morph – were both there. It turned out they had literally run into each other when Ax-man was trying to chase Leah, who he had apparently offended in some way, and Tobias had been panicked about his possibly new _nothlit_ status.

I could understand his pain. Still, if he really was an Andalite, I thought it probably could have been worse.

Leah and Ax went from there, leading us to a house.

The world we were in just seemed to get weirder and weirder. Lots of fields and restaurants randomly placed on the fields. Drive-thrus, but no roads. And as I walked through I noticed that some things I thought of would not be around one minute but be around the next.

Unfortunately, before I made this discovery what I had _thought_ was about the time we had baby-sat some skunks and Cassie had sprayed Homer, Jake's dog from the past.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Everyone turned around and laughed - well, everyone but Tobias and Leah - as I managed to get sprayed by a skunk that just seemed to appear. Fortunately for _them_ I was downwind. And completely unable to keep up. But I spent the rest of the time muttering and grumbling about skunks and smells. And maybe just a little about how I hadn't _meant_ to do anything funny at the time.

Life. It was just always going to be unfair, wasn't it? I couldn't have imagined a double cheeseburger, I had to think "skunk."

The only bright side was I knew afterward to think "tomato juice" and "large spa bathtub." Ax said that it didn't take much practice to learn not to make everything in your head real.

I wondered how long he had been living as a human here. I noticed Leah seemed to stay pretty close to him, looking back at us occasionally nervously. I realized that, for the first time in any history I could remember I hadn't made leering jokes at her, a girl, and how we'd work well together. Whether that was because of Jeanne being gone, or because I could sense she didn't have any sense of humor worth mentioning...

Well, that was an entirely different question. But it was true – I didn't see Leah as "my type." She didn't seem to give any vibes, at all. And it was the weirdest thing, because before that day I wouldn't have thought vibes really existed. Or that any girl wouldn't strike me as having them, at least.

It was obvious she'd grown close to Ax, but it seemed like a formal relationship. Either that, or Leah just didn't like shortened names. She kept calling him Aximili.

It was driving me nuts.

Jake and I were muttering to each other on the way back, trying to figure everything out. But Ax had told all of us in private thought-speak that we would actually be discussing it once we arrived "home."

The uneasiest thing, though, was how everyone seemed to be adjusting to the world here. Like everyone was complacent with where we were. This place wasn't real. And it seemed like almost everyone was getting too mellow about that as we trudged up to the house.

"So," I said, pinching my nose, "May I ask where the bathroom is?"

"Go upstairs," Leah said, "Use the master bathroom. If we're really lucky it won't exist much longer." She glanced at me, "And if we're even luckier, we'll get out of this world and you won't have to deal with the smell much longer anyway."

Okay. So maybe there was something that resembled humor after all.

In the meantime, I ran up the stairs to try to get some of the smell.

The tomato juice had stocked itself. Ax had said it would. I filled that whole tub and jumped in, head underwater. At the same time, I tried imagining that I really didn't smell.

Unfortunately, the latter suggestion didn't work.

I showered afterward, and still smelling like... Well, skunk... I went back downstairs where Ax, Leah, Tobias, and Jake were waiting. Leah gestured toward the couches in the living room. Everyone sat down.

Instantly, she and Ax seemed to have a whole new attitude.

It was more like what I would have expected in the first place.

"Ax," Jake said, "We were taken while demorphed, except Tobias." He glanced over at Tobias, who, in Andalite form, was moping around in the back. He'd gone straight back to being quiet, at least for a while. "But we couldn't morph, either. Is Tobias even really morphed?"

"Prince Jake, I know in reality that I am not morphed," Ax said, "I appear to be in human morph all the time because The One will not let me return to Andalite form, except for the battles that we call 'Scenarios.'"

He started into a pause for a moment.

"You said The One waited until you were all demorphed?"

"Except Tobias."

Ax paused, thoughtful. "It may be... Prince Jake. It may be that The One cannot control those who are not in the body of an intelligent being. In other words, perhaps it could only come after us in our human and Andalite forms."

"I would imagine Tobias it still morphed. But I am not sure," Ax admitted, "If he would be a _nothlit_ or not. When we put those in morph in bio-stasis, they can demorph whenever they are released because they are frozen in time.

"I am not sure, however, if this is the case for what The One does. Tobias's body is still subject to experiencing normal space-time. We are in suspended animation, not actually frozen in time itself."

‹Just like before?› Tobias muttered, ‹How can we be living the whole story all over again...›

I had the creeping suspicion Tobias hadn't really meant for us to hear that.

He didn't quite look at Tobias. He didn't like giving a bad prognosis. Neither did Jake. And after Menderash... Well, I didn't want to be dealing with anyone that couldn't morph again any time soon.

"But there's hope?"

He nodded. "It just depends on exactly how The One functions."

"Great," I said, "Do you know how we get out of here?"

Ax paused, looking over at Leah. "Leah might actually have a few better theories than I do," he admitted. She looked back at him, surprised. "Mostly Ondrean – a member from the _Intrepid_ --"

‹There are other survivors?› Tobias demanded suddenly.

"Yes," Ax continued. "The One at the moment presents us with situations we are to attempt to overcome. The claim being that if we do well, it will leave us alone... And our plan has to try to get The One to leave us alone long enough to escape."

"Where is Menderash?" I asked.

Ax shrugged.

"As a punishment for... Something," Ax said, looking guiltily again at Leah, "I have been separated indefinitely from interacting with Ondrean. We only see him during those battles we mentioned, the Scenario."

I nodded. I looked at Leah.

"He says you have information, too."

Leah just looked, for a minute. Not staring. Not challenging. Just nervous. I couldn't quite get it yet. I was a little worried about her general attitude toward us.

‹We all have known each other a really long time,› Tobias realized, excluding Leah only, ‹She's nervous about being around all of us at the same time like this.›

Of course. Tobias had known what it was like to be the kid that couldn't quite fit in with the others because they had history. I was maybe two clicks closer to understanding Leah. I had a feeling Tobias was already somewhere around the same residency, at least, in some ways.

"We want to get you--" Jake began, but I gave him a look.

"We _all_ want to get out of here," I said. "If there's information any of us are hiding, well, that ruins our chances. I'm not interested in living in Halloweentown or Alice's Wonderland. If you need details, well, now is the time, Leah."

The inclusive chatter seemed to bring her out of her funk. I didn't know her history yet, but I was going to definitely be looking this one up. She made me nervous, and I wasn't sure how to interpret it. Of course, that was probably part of why she seemed so weird.

We Animorphs had never exactly gotten very far when we had been trusting and open toward others.

"I don't know that much," Leah said quietly.

"But," She said, her voice getting stronger, "I do know our bodies are still in tact, somewhere, alive. When The One releases people useless to it, they die. But I think The One kills them, from what I understand – not that they were dead before it released them."

"I also know," she continued, "That it can be defeated. Its ancestors were a lot more powerful than The One itself is. Sometimes I wander around and stumble across leftovers from its collective memory." She shuddered. "Sad, scary things. Half built. And they seem to go on forever. They left another planet, a long time ago. Aximili already knows this part," she added, glancing at him.

He nodded.

"What are our bodies doing, then?" I asked, "Why keep us alive?"

Ax looked on, a bit darker.

"The One doesn't want all of its victims to be dead," he said simply, "If we're not living, The One can access our neurons. Control and access our minds completely. On the other hand, it never gets a new answer when we do that. I have threatened it at least once since I discovered that."

"Good," I muttered, "Good. This thing can be threatened, at least."

"I guess the last question," Jake mused, "Is how do we learn more about how to take it down?"

"Well," Ax said, "The beginning is simple: Play the game. Investigate the parts of the collective memory you can access. There's only one thing – the one thing that would help us most – that I we have not been able to figure out."

"What's that?" Jake asked.

"Operating our real bodies," Ax said like it was obvious, "If we had control over our bodies, we could be trying to morph at this very moment to see if it would untangle us from The One. But as long as we have no control, there is no way to test the theory."

"Yeah, because I'd love to test morphing a cockroach to get away from the Play-Doh monster that had three Animorphs down in five seconds flat," I muttered.

Everyone just stared at me.

"What?" I demanded, "I have to be funny all the time?"

Jake sighed.

"We have to figure out if we can get people who aren't morph capable out, too," Jake said, looking at Tobias, "Just in case."

"Not just Tobias," Leah interrupted.

"You can't morph?"

"No," Leah said, "My body rejected the _Escafil _device."

"Oh," I said, "Superb." Well, a mission isn't fun unless there are about as many risks as you can take.

And so we were stuck with a need to learn more about our enemy than I really wanted to know.


	9. Chapter Eight Tobias

Chapter Eight

**Tobias**

All I heard in our discussion was that we weren't really here. How our best hope for getting out of this world was simply to do what The One wanted... At least, until we learned enough about it to get away on our own. Really, I just wanted back home. I wanted to demorph. I wanted everything to stop feeling like it was the first story, all over again.

It felt like such a long time ago, when I had been human and Jake had told me there was no time to demorph before going into the Yeerk Pool. A being so powerful any of us would think "magic" had given me my powers back. And to be honest, I loved flying. I loved the wings. Hawk was who I was. I did a lot of Yeerk intelligence, air security on the old missions.

What was I going to do if I couldn't morph again?

And I hated Jake for that experience.

‹At least you'll be more useful for battles on spacecrafts,› I said bitterly to myself. Mocking Jake's earlier decision.

We had been fools: The One didn't need to rush us in a vicious onslaught. It had waited until we had been in the best position for its taking. We had talked about not giving it what it wanted – even while walking into its trap.

I couldn't show self-pity now, though. I didn't want their pity. And Ax was stuck as human. At least, in this reality. This game, as he kept calling it. And there were lots of strange wonders about this place, that, after our initial meeting, I began to explore while Ax was working on kites to avoid talking to me. Marco and Jake were playing Monopoly, also leaving me to myself. Avoiding me until I had some time to think – just being courteous. Polite.

Aside from Leah, actually. She had mostly gone off with Jake and Marco to interrogate them with what it was like to morph. And even though I _could_ morph, I hadn't taken advantage of that as much as the others.

I guess she was trying to find a topic to learn more about them. It didn't really matter much to me or the others – we couldn't leave Leah or Ondrean behind in this... Thing. But I knew what it felt like to be with a group that was knit tight. I probably could have opened the topic for her.

But I definitely wasn't going to.

Marco and Jake kept trying to change the subject – they didn't really want to discuss things that usually meant past battles. Leah tried not to show it, but she seemed to think she was being snubbed and crept back into that topic minutes after it had been pushed off again.

"Look, Leah, morphing is awesome sometimes, horrible other times, and always really disgusting," Marco finally said, "Can we move onto creating a 60" television in this biological version of _The Matrix_?"

I was tired. I didn't want to listen to them anymore, so I trotted away to find someplace quiet.

Leah and Ax didn't really seem worried about people wandering off here. It seemed risky, and Jake hadn't really wanted anyone to go off on their own. But Leah and Ax had been here a long, long time – at least as long as we'd been searching for Ax.

Leah had been here longer, of course. However long ago The One fount the Blade Ship.

So even though we felt like it was dangerous, and even as my spine shivered and I rose my tail – I knew it was unlikely anything would happen. They said pretty much all Scenarios were announced, and The One didn't normally play tricks on off-time.

I hadn't missed the "normally."

I walked through a wood that was a mixture of Leah and Ax's mind – all Earth trees, but a mesh of what Leah had known where she lived and what Ax had known long ago by Cassie's barn.

I felt pain in my hearts and my stalk eyes wavered. Places I had run away from, and I was stuck here now. Remembering Rachel, and flying up on thermals. Her bald eagle morph, such a proud symbol of the fierce freedom fighter she had been. My red-tailed hawk body...

Well, a symbol of how common and unimportant I'd been before I became a _nothlit_, I guess. I hadn't done much as a human.

I started trying to imagine all the ways being an Andalite might be better than being a hawk.

To take my mind off of things.

‹I won't have to morph to use my hands,› I thought to myself, almost a frightened chant. ‹I won't see as far, but I'll see in every direction.›

That was right. Keep going.

‹I can run. Fast. And I will have a tail blade.›

‹It doesn't matter. We weren't going to get away from here and be able to escape back to Earth. We were away,› I continued, ‹We were on a dead spacecraft. We still are. We aren't getting out of here. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.›

I wasn't even paying attention to how far I'd gone. I had just been walking away, trying to escape the woods that looked like I should see a barn coming up in the distance. It was uncharacteristic of an Andalite, but I'd done it a few times before as a human. I looked, distracted from the past, as I realized I didn't see those woods anywhere anymore. I'd been so zoned out I had walked through Leah's woods – more trees that died in the winter, more bushes, less evergreens. I didn't recognize anything.

My tail twitched. My stalk eyes wavered, looked at the ground as Ax had reminded me to once when we had been in morph together. Finding Your Way 101: Look for evidence.

Was I lost?

No, I could follow the trail of hoofs that had come out here. They had imprinted in the ground, still a little muddy from the "rain" that had happened the day before.

_Too bad other problems that involve finding yourself can't be this easy_, I thought ruefully.

I began walking back, glad I had something else to focus on for a while, until I recognized where I was again. And that Leah had brought Ax and Marco to go after me. I guess even she'd known sending Jake to talk to me was a bad idea. But I thought she and Ax looked a little more concerned than they should have – at least, if the concern was putting me in a bad mood.

Ax looked at me cautiously, "Hello, Tobias."

‹Hey, Ax-man,› I used the our old nickname for him a long time ago.

Ax didn't get into my probable predicament. But he looked at me and I realized – he felt similarly right now. He was stuck in a body that wasn't really his. And we didn't know how long it was going to take.

"Let's walk," Ax suggested. I didn't bother pointing out that I had just finished walking.

It wasn't like I was all that anxious to go "home."

So we walked. Marco was mostly quiet. He was on the lookout, I guessed.

Or maybe just trying not to make any jokes.

It reminded me none of us were really the same as we'd used to be. Or had become what we were supposed to be.

‹Some a little more than others,› I thought again, looking at Ax and myself. If we got out, he would still be Andalite. If I got out, I didn't know, but probably not. I wondered if Ax was trying to give me hope that wasn't really there, for now.

Ax was talking about the woods around us, explaining Leah's woods had been based around canyons close to our coastline – we had been a little higher up, a little further inland. She was letting him do most of the talking. Marco trailed up behind me.

‹Where's Jake?› I asked casually. If everyone else was here, that meant he was alone.

"Taking a nap."

‹Ah.›

He looked at me more skeptically, this time. Suddenly – in a low voice while he let Ax and Leah pull a little farther ahead – he lashed out at me.

"Tobias," he hissed, "You can't run off like this. We're all trying to get out of here, and no offense, but you and Jake and I seem to be the only ones who realize we can't just sit here twiddling our thumbs until The One feels like finally starting a new 'Scenario.' We have to try to figure out other ways out of here."

‹You don't think _Ax_ would have realized another way out if it existed?› I laughed darkly in spite of my thoughts. ‹You're crazy. Ax is an Andalite. He hasn't given up. He just hadn't seen anything from close up before. And Leah... She's been a Human-Controller for years.›

"Maybe," Marco said, "But maybe not. Ax lost everyone in his team on the _Intrepid_. But he spends all his time talking to this Leah girl and he doesn't seem too upset that he never sees Ondrean. We don't even know what Ondrean is going through, or whether he really exists here anymore, or anything else useful. And he's not bugged that he's human. And he only acted like it was interesting that it waited for us all to be human or Andalite – I'd say that was way more than 'Hmm, maybe.' That thing could have easily destroyed us even in our morphed bodies. We hadn't even seen it coming. So why not just take us while we were in morph?

"And Leah, she wants to be free. But we know what happens the longer you're a host: You get broken. You give up. She walks and talks like a person expecting to get out – but look at her. You can tell she doesn't believe a word of it. It's the endorsement of hopelessness."

He was right, of course. Marco was pretty good at sizing people up. Not as good as some people I'd known in the past, but his skeptic mind tended to make good assumptions. He was right.

It was up to us. At least – Jake, Marco and I. Everyone would help, of course, but the three of us had to not fall for the defeatism Ax and Leah had obviously fallen to over the last few months. Or years.

I sighed heavily.

"Hey, guys."

We turned suddenly, stopped walking. Jake approached the group.

"Hi, Jake," Marco supplied, "The rest of us were just walking around this hallucination. Or whatever it is."

He looked like he was trying to smile, but his face was too heavy.

"Let's walk, then," He said.

We continued on, through caves and fields and hills and woods. I wondered how much of this had been thought up by Ax and Leah. Or if some of it was our own now. Or if The One had created at least some of the world. Past victims?

It was probably a bit of each.

Marco had been right. He gave me a meaningful glance as I noticed their strange contentedness, walking through "off-time." Even Jake.

Hadn't it been tempting for me, too?

"So guys," He brought up suddenly, "How do we get into a game with The One? Since we seem to rely on this to learn more about it?" He rubbed his hands together like he was getting ready to listen to the game plan from a football team behind on the game.

"We are about to be in a game," Ax said, continuing to walk.

He carefully avoided my gaze.

"That's why we came out," Leah added. She didn't look too happy.

Jake looked, doubtful. "I didn't get realize there was going to be a game now."

"Usually we go through outright challenges," Leah explained, "But other times they are more indirect. As we have said – The One wants us to have thoughts. To be living. To do something it can be entertained by, instead of controlling."

Her voice was getting more and more worried. I felt my tail rise a little, again. The adrenaline coursed, pumping my hearts faster.

"Why didn't you warn us?" Jake asked. He was frustrated.

"We haven't been allowed to. It's a surprise," And Ax looked over at Jake and Tobias regretfully. Which had me incredibly worried.

I didn't know if I'd started to feel it coming. Or if I just got the tone from Ax and Leah. But I could feel something was about to shake my world.

"It... It can't be," Jake said suddenly. It froze us all cold. Everyone looked the same direction. He might not be the leader he used to be... But everyone still wanted to listen to Jake.

‹It can't be..,› I said.

It was a bald eagle. And it took off.

I'm sure everyone expected me to go after it. The bald eagle that, as a bird, I knew was meant to be Rachel in morph.

But Rachel had been dead for years. I was not fooled by parlor tricks. I knew if Rachel had been alive, she would have done anything to come to me. She would never have left me behind.

So everyone was surprised when I ignored the bald eagle in flight. But not as surprised as when Jake _didn't._

"RACHEL!" Jake yelled, at the top of his lungs. And even though the dream didn't listen, didn't stop, he ran as fast as he could.

Back into the woods.


	10. Chapter Nine Leah

Chapter Nine

Leah

We ran after Jake. Or at least, Aximili, Marco and I did. Tobias didn't want to pull ahead of us, so he trotted, pacing with Aximili. I could tell it was an awkward pace for him to keep at such a slow trot – he would have to walk, then trot, then walk again to try to keep the pace correctly. His body really couldn't handle the speed of Aximili's "run." Or if it could he didn't know how to make it do that yet.

Probably because Aximili, even knowing this wasn't reality, and knowing he'd spent months familiarizing with his "body" - was still afraid to do things on his "two ungainly human legs" as he had put it to me frequently.

I had to respect little things like that I saw between the two of them. Or any two of the Animorphs – even Tobias and Jake, who obviously did not have the best relationship anymore. When you can outrun your best friend by at least thirty miles an hour, and stay behind anyway to support your friend even in an emergency?

That was a deep friendship.

I was seething with jealousy for a second at that intimacy, as we ran. Even though their lives had been horrible and they had been forever scarred, I wanted to have a history. And I did, in a way. I had my memories and all the past experiences of what I was. But that hadn't involved other people since I had been controlled by Essaat. Which had been years, on its own. And my history from her infestation on? She had ruined every part of my past that she could, to keep me quiet. So all of the "important" things since then had been hers, not mine. And then there had been the journey that led us to The One.

I hadn't just lost my body. I had gained many scars. Things the Animorphs would probably find out later, if we survived this mess – it wasn't like I had other stories anymore, unless they wanted to talk about my past in the American Youth Soccer League.

But for everything I had lost, and every trauma I had gained, I hadn't had the chance to grow. I the same age as Aximili, and about the same age as Jake and everyone else. Mentally, though, I felt like I had before infestation. Like a kid.

If anything, I was weaker than I ever had been as a free human, especially now. Because I didn't get a lot of the stuff going on around me. I felt stunted.

_So _make _a history,_ I thought to myself, the illusion of my feet striking the ground. Of my heart racing – though maybe it was.

Around trees, through woods. Some by me, some by Aximili, a great many by The One, but mostly the result of our own memories. Which The One didn't just read, like Yeerks did. The One _owned_ our memories. It saw them all, instantly, at the same time. And I knew that.

_So make growth. There's no reason you can't try to make friends with everyone here. Or after you're freed._

I wanted to. But I couldn't understand the Animorphs anymore than they understood me. I could feel myself wanting to drift away. Aximili had told me Tobias and Rachel had been intimate partners on Earth. That Jake was the leader. That Marco had been the perceptive one, and Aximili himself had been the technological Ace of Spades.

That wasn't what I had seen so far. It had been stupid of me, I guess. I had thought like they'd be the exact same people they were during the war out here. Like me, being frozen mentally in time for the most part. But what Aximili had told me was information several years old from his last real experiences with them. Since then, they had all become their own leaders, for their own lives. Tried to break into civilian lives – some more successful than others.

They were all leaders. They all had a shared history. And they were all broken.

_Fine then. Be glad you don't have anything anymore. It just means you can't be hurt like they __can be hurt. At least you don't have an "each other" to fight for._

Maybe that was true.

But even if it was, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a present with people in it. Even if it meant sometimes I'd argue with people or get into fights, I wanted to be with people, now, in my own control.

Someday, I'd even tell them that.

But I wasn't sure I could ever talk about the history I had with Essat. What she had done to me, or rather, what she had made me do. I wanted to forget. Or be able to tell, but not have people look at me strangely. Hosts had known, of course. Yeerks spoke to each other in daily life. So plenty of people had known my "history."

I didn't know how to go about telling people on my own. Or even if I should. Making it my story, for real. Really, what were the chances we'd get back to Earth, anyway? Jake had told me they had come here illegally.

The Animorphs were not exactly hoping for a welcoming return.

We ran as fast as we could around trees. We were catching up to Jake – Aximili, Tobias and I in the lead. Aximili and I perceived ourselves as "in shape" because we had been in this world for months – not stuck confined in a spacecraft. Tobias was an Andalite. Marco and Jake both must have seen themselves as relatively unhealthy, because they were both slowing down, gasping for air.

Suddenly, a clearing of grasses. Out of nowhere.

The bald eagle Jake had been chasing swooped. I recoiled, seeing it had a rat that it was eating. The rat screamed. In my head. And it kept screaming until it died.

I felt ill. Repulsed, more than I had been in a long time. Shakily, I grasped the tree next to me. Aximili saw me, started to me, but I stopped him with a shaky wave of my hand.

Having friends, having history, it was harder than I thought. I was having a hard time letting go of the feeling I had to do everything myself. To be strong alone, if I could. Even having been here months, months of not being a Controller, I hadn't done so much as give Aximili a handshake.

I leaned over, threw up. Straightened out.

Looked back up.

Jake, staring at the eagle, horrorstruck.

And the bald eagle suddenly wasn't a bald eagle anymore.

It was a girl, a few years younger than me. Tall, proud, with blue eyes and a self-mocking smile. She reminded me just a little of Jake, the few times I had seen him shaken out of past memories.

The girl spit out the rat. Blood came down her mouth.

"Do you really want to leave?" The One asked, laughing mockingly, "Have you been alive, without me? I can give you everything you want. You can be happy. Or you can fight, try to leave. And I can make you suffer like nothing else."

I had been here months before Aximili. I knew it was true. Oh, The One could make us suffer, if we wanted. I trembled at the open threat – The One usually punished in a less direct way. But I had seen its more direct routes at other times. I looked over, at Jake, who looked at The One like a ghost.

"Rachel," Jake whispered, still flabbergasted, "Rachel, I'm so sorry. Please."

This, their fallen leader.

He thought this was his old cousin? Rachel?

I looked at the illusion ahead of me, knowing now who everyone else was seeing. I had been on the Blade Ship, but not morph capable. I hadn't been on the bridge when the legendary Animorph had morphed and destroyed the leader of our new "Empire."

I had never seen Rachel.

She had long, blond hair. Blue eyes. Tall, she looked like a model. Her eyes were fierce. I had heard members of the crew talk about her looking like a human bimbo, later, a stark contrast to how fear-invoking she had been in battle. But I didn't see it, looking at her now.

Maybe because The One had taken Rachel from my friends' minds, and not the Yeerks or humans it had found on the Blade Ship.

Or maybe because I had just seen her spit out an animal she had been eating alive.

Everyone stared. I stared. More than behind, I was confused. I felt like the world was becoming theirs now, property of the Animorphs. And I just didn't understand all of the things they were bringing in.

I hoped we could soon find a way out. Soon.

"Forgive you? For killing me, Jake? For destroying Tobias?"

‹Prince Jake. This is not Rachel. This is not Rachel!›

The One, in its guise, laughed. "I could never forgive you. You sent me away. You sent me away on a mission where I couldn't accomplish anything before I died. You made my death useless, Jake.

"I hope you never stop suffering." And then "she" ran.

"We have to go after her!" Jake started off again.

"Jake, that isn't--" I began. But he turned around and stared at me in a way that terrified me. His eyes, crazy, desperate.

I wondered if I had ever looked at Aximili with those eyes. When I talked about getting away, at least.

I kept my mouth shut.

"We have to go. It was Rachel. We have to go and get her."

He started off again.

"Jake," Marco said placatingly, "That was not really Rachel. Ax and Leah explained this to us during that meeting – that is The One. And --"

‹And Rachel is dead,› Tobias finished coldly. Resolutely. ‹Jake, if I thought that was Rachel – or that there was any hope of Rachel ever _being_ again – I would do anything for that. I would sell my soul. Die. Whatever it took. But that... That _thing_ isn't Rachel, Jake. It's a parlor trick.›

Jake looked around at everyone, bitterly.

"Well," he said, "I can't take that. Not when I just saw her."

He went after The One again.

Marco gave Tobias a look. Marco's eyes lost focus, a little, but they cleared up fast and Marco nodded about... Something I didn't know. I hadn't been included.

Aximili and the others followed. They would eventually find Jake, calm him down. Maybe eventually The One would take us into a real challenge. What The One was doing now was more simple: Get a rise. Nothing about it would give us an edge on how to escape. There was nothing about it we could use to turn tables. It was making a new story, just watching and eating up our reactions.

This was The One's sick idea of doing something for a laugh.

I wondered if there was any point. Or what heroes these were, chasing shadows. That was all anything we chased after in this place was – other than each other. Aximili and I knew that. And even our presence with each other was at the will of The One – Ondrean was a testament to how little existing could mean in this world... We never saw him outside of challenges.

But we seemed to do it most of the time anyway.

I guessed The One played tricks on our mind. Made us less accepting of endings we had in the past with poor closure. Jake had his. Tobias probably had his own, somewhere, even if it hadn't turned out to be Rachel by itself. Marco and Aximili? Certainly. And I had mine, even if I hoped The One never brought those to the attention of the Animorphs.

I doubted, outside the realm of the one, Jake would have followed something that appeared to be Rachel. Obviously, we weren't behaving exactly like we would without being absorbed by The One. Everything was wrong here. The whole place, it was just wrong.

No one here had ever known a happy ending. Everything was so broken. Ruined. People clinging onto pasts. People not hoping. I wondered if the Animorphs even existed, really, or if they just _were_, people being for the small amounts of time they had each other as a support system.

I spent a lot of time thinking about things that really weren't important, I guess.

I felt bad for Jake. It was an invasion of privacy. Still, he needed someone. Company.

Following their trails, I continued on after Jake. And the others.

I wasn't sure if I counted as someone needed, yet. Welcome company.

I could try, though.

I could try.


	11. Chapter Ten Aximili

**Chapter Ten**

**Aximili**

We followed Prince Jake, the Animorphs and I. He followed the mockery of Rachel, again, through the woods. Marco, Tobias, and I followed at a slow pace. Tobias could have easily caught up with Jake again, however, Marco and I were slowed: Marco was not fit for a human, and I did not like moving at a pace fast for my human body.

Plus, I did not have the years of experiencing walking or running like a human as the others – even if I knew how to do so better than any Andalite. So my pace was even more difficult to keep up with the others at a walk or otherwise. It was somewhat shorter than the others. Even Marco, who was short for an adult human.

It felt really uncomfortable.

I missed my hoofs.

‹I didn't see Leah following us,› Tobias said, ‹Should we stop? Go back?›

"No, Tobias. At least, we are no more in a hurry than we normally would be. And Leah," I added, panting with fatigue, "Will not be in danger. I am sure. She will probably follow us again momentarily."

Leah was more fit than the other Animorphs, but occasionally I had seen her pause for a pensive moment alone.

Or, possibly, she had felt this was an issue between old friends and had gone home to wait. She seemed to focus too much on the idea of old friends and personal history.

A few times, I had considered pointing out that old friends do not exist without working to be friends with new people. She did not need to feel intrusive on becoming friends with others who already had friends.

She knew this was true, but so far had seem unable to act on what she knew, choosing to remain in the background. I had noted this frequently: An anxiety that could dominate against her reason. A phobia, or a condition resulting from years of being isolated? Or something unrelated – at least somewhat – to any of those conditions?

So ignoring her, we continued to follow Prince Jake. Prince Jake, who believed he was following his dead cousin, Rachel. Though I did not doubt he was also completely aware that Rachel had been dead for years.

As with Andalites, the acceptance of deaths and past mistakes can be hard for humans. Prince Jake, in particular, had the heavy burden of his past leadership during war time. Though we had all been a part of the war, our actions weighed heavily against him as a leader.

On the Andalite Home World, we are given training to cope with mental or emotional strain brought on by war. I myself did well when I had been given leadership training as Captain for the _Intrepid_.

But Prince Jake, of course, had not had any military training when he had been in the war. Seeing how he acted now, years later, made me wonder how well an Andalite fighting a war without any training would fair post-war. Particularly when it came to the issues of coping with the reality that comes with decision making.

Today, his actions would probably have demoted him. Even amongst ourselves, years ago, this sort of behavior would not have been permissible. I did not lose my respect for Prince Jake. But I hoped that as the reality of the situation became more clear to them that the dynamic of our group would normalize.

Well, perhaps not "normalize." We had originally been guerilla fighters. Obviously, that tactic would not work so well when we were literally absorbed into our enemy. Covert operations and secrecy could not be our game at this point. Even if we won, it would not be with the strategies we had pulled off so successfully in the past.

For a moment, I thought of how much I had missed this, compared to sitting on the Andalite Home World, or aboard the _Intrepid_. Space battles had been almost nonexistent. And while I had been trained to fire Shredders, I had grown used to tail-blade fighting over the years on Earth.

Again, I wondered where I belonged. Or if I should have listened to my parents and had left Earth to begin with.

Certainly, it had not helped me or my human friends much. Though, The One was a threat to more than my friends.

"He'll calm down," Marco said, "I don't know what's going on. This isn't like Jake, normally."

I could have pointed out that nothing here was normal. That we needed to aggravate The One into challenging us. Our bodies were not even ours; this world was fake. However, the others had not been here very long. Whatever time was here.

"Does anyone see Prince Jake?" I asked, "Jake. Jay-kuh. Jay. Kuh."

"Hey, I was wondering when you'd start doing that again! But no, I don't see him. I do see tracks, though. And he's been into the Twinkies lately, so I doubt he's gotten far."

Mmmm. Twinkies. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed human food until The One. With months of artificially consuming human food, I had realized my ability to tolerate taste had grown – at least, in this world.

I was not sure if Marco was serious about Prince Jake eating many Twinkies lately.

But I had not considered making a Twinkie.

I did not know how this would apply outside of the world.

I heard footsteps behind us, and I twisted my human neck to see what I could not see otherwise. Leah had caught up. Tobias had seen this, of course, but it wasn't the center of our attention.

Prince Jake, ahead. He had stopped, and we approached him. "Rachel" had disappeared.

"I'm sorry," Jake said, "I'm sorry. You guys are right, of course. That isn't Rachel. I don't... I don't know what came over me."

He paced, thinking, considering. For a human his age, he seemed particularly stressed.

I was glad to see that Prince Jake was coming to his senses.

He turned to me. "Ax," he said, "How do we get out of here? We have to get out of here. This thing, The One, it can keep us here as long as it wants, can't it? And we might not even know the extent of time outside."

"My god, how long have we been here?"

"Less time than the dinosaurs, more time than a football game," Marco joked.

No one thought this statement was funny.

Though I considered making a human joke noting that in some ways we were far older than any dinosaur ever lived, due to a _Sario Rip_ many years ago. We had been sent back to the time of the dinosaurs, and my friend, Tobias, was the one who actually made the decision to defuse the bomb that would have saved the planet from a large comet an alien species called the Nesk. I had defused the bomb once he had told me the significance of the time period.

But my human jokes tended to come off poorly in execution. I had long since stopped trying to have a human sense of humor, with the exception of occasional "dry humor."

I decided to not bring up my joke. Though I thought it was a particularly good one.

I considered Prince Jake's question.

"I do not know," I said honestly, "My ability to keep track of time is not present here, much like when being unconscious. This is like... Prince Jake, The One operates almost like a shared dream. We are not anywhere where I could keep track of time naturally."

I looked at Marco. At Tobias, once again in a body that was strange to him. At Leah. At Jake.

I sighed, as a human. Played with a stone using one of my feet, more of an Andalite gesture but not completely strange to human sensibilities. I considered our evidence What I knew. What I did not know.

"I... I am just not sure," I admitted, "I have some theories. And we need to defeat The One in a Scenario. That," I continued, "is the way we can escape its attention for a while."

"How do you know that?" Marco asked skeptically, "Have you won a Scenario yet? In the meantime, we're stuck here, in this universe, not knowing how much time has gone by. For all _you_ know, we've been here twenty years!"

He pulled his fingers through his human hair, which had lengthened in the time it had not been cut aboard their spacecraft.

"I have a feeling that The One has not called us into a Scenario yet because for now we are entertaining without much prodding," I said, "It takes on the form of Rachel and Jake goes after it. We argue with each other. We are anxious, waiting to find a way to be released. Since The One is entertained --"

Prince Jake looked abashed.

"I am not blaming you, Prince Jake," I emphasized, "The One can do this with anyone. It has done so with me in the past. With Leah. And for a while it may content itself this way. That is probably why we have gone so long without a Scenario."

‹What if we challenged _it_?› Tobias asked suddenly.

I shrugged, doubtful, "I suppose, if any of us know how. What would we do to antagonize it into a challenge?"

Everyone looked down. It looked like uncertainty. But I noticed Leah biting her lip, fearful. Like she had something to say, but she did not want to say it.

She had been here longer than any of us.

Including me.

She looked up. At me. At the others.

I saw fear. But I also saw strength.

"I know how."


	12. Chapter Eleven Jake

**Chapter Eleven**

**Jake**

Leah wouldn't explain to us what she knew until we walked back to the house. I wasn't really sure why, except maybe just the comfort of being somewhere familiar, over out in the woods. Or maybe she thought it was more secure, a place where The One wouldn't listen.

Which seemed unlikely to me, but on the other hand, if The One wanted surprises I guess it was ignoring us at least some of the time.

Once back at the house – a pretty simple structure, for a house, really. But it had a family room and a kitchen, which is where we had spent most of our time talking. We'd all crash, exhausted, around the couch at night – Leah said before we'd come Ax wouldn't have stayed in the house, but gone to his scoop. Now I guess since our team was here – as whole as it was going to get – Ax had decided to get more comfortable.

Leah didn't show any offense about it. I had told Marco to keep an eye on her and try to figure it out, but I wished, again, for Cassie. She'd have known, if she'd been here. I missed her.

I'd been doing that a lot lately, since I gotten here.

We made food, and other than Tobias we sat around the couch – one of the large ones that make an "L" shape.

How it fit into the room? I had no idea.

"Well!" Marco said, "We're toasting with made-up apple cider and imaginary 'Mac and Cheese.' Back in the barracks! So what's the plan, Leah?"

I cut him a glance. Leah hadn't looked too excited about telling us her story. And she hadn't told us anything so far. She was upset, and I had a feeling she was going to tell us things that she didn't want us to take lightly.

Marco doesn't take that stuff easily. He believes most everything can be made a joke. And he thought Leah was annoyingly serious – which I might have agreed with, but I wasn't going to tell him. Even so, he's been through some tough stuff. So I expected him to cut it out.

At least, until we knew more.

Leah sighed, sat back. Everyone else acted like they weren't listening, but the truth was, Leah was new to us. She didn't share our story. And a person's story could tell a lot about who they were. So now, we were wondering what her story was, and how much of it she'd give. And I knew my team: We were going to pay attention to the details.

She started speaking, her face more to the floor, or the ceiling, at times, so I knew she wasn't particularly interested in our reactions.

"When I got here," she began, "I was a Human-Controller, as you know. I had been one for years. And I was with a team of Human-Controllers."

"When The One absorbed us, it disposed of most of us right away. But I couldn't morph. I was the only one in that group that couldn't – they had taken the _Escafil_ device, as you know."

She laughed sullenly, "You'd think that would have made me dull, to something like The One. But instead it made it see me as a collector's item. It let my Yeerk die. And kept me."

Was she bitter at its decision to kill her Yeerk? Had she been voluntary – a human to choose becoming a slave?

No, I didn't get that idea. I could only get her voice tone – she was avoiding contact with everyone's eyes – but I definitely heard hate.

"Anyway, I wanted to be free," she continued. Her tone dropped into something sad, "And at first I fought The One a bit. It just found the fight amusing. What could I do?"

"I didn't know about Scenarios back then – I guess we hadn't had a lot of warriors. So instead of challenging me, it just did things to try to aggravate a response – like we saw today, earlier, with the fake-Rachel. And it worked, for a long time."

She stopped. She looked up.

I saw decision-making. Deciding what we needed to know, or what we didn't need.

Teams don't work well when they keep secrets. Any secret our own team had kept backfired.

"Go on," I prodded, "Everything. Please"

_That's right, Jake, keep it polite_, I thought bitterly, _It's worked so well for everyone you've used it on. Go ahead, push._

"The first time I made The One retaliate, I had tried to kill myself. I figured, hey, none of this was real anyway. So why not?"

Actually, to be honest, I think everyone had more or less expected that. Alone, living here, in a place that was not reality, after years of slavery where you couldn't do so much as scratch your nose or blink... It was hard to consider yourself alive. And by yourself, the idea of rescue is laughable. But she continued, carefully not looking at anyone.

"The punishment was terrible," She said, shuddering, "I had to... I had to relive bad past events. My infestation and – ah – other things --"

"What would you consider _worse_ than infestation?" Ax demanded, an Andalite to the very end. But, again, I silenced him. Maybe we were both leaders, but it was indelicate to ask. He thought it was impossible, but obviously, this was not how Leah felt.

Answering "what was worse" was irrelevant.

"We don't need to know every single memory," I pointed out – to everyone.

"Yeah, well, I have a point to make," Marco said, "We can't exactly have Tobias here starting to chop heads just to infuriate The One. I mean, it might just not care enough to worry about it every single time it happens – even if it thinks our memories are great fodder for its entertainment. And what happens if it decides not to do anything about it?"

I agreed.

‹Second option?› Tobias asked.

"The second time took a lot longer, but it did work," Leah admitted, "I just stopped caring, thinking if I got boring it would dispose of me. I stopped doing anything. I didn't move, other than basics: Bathroom, food, sleep, drink. I didn't move around outside, go for walks, play games. I'd just do 'boring' things – at least, for it. Writing. Talking out loud.

"It nearly drove me insane, to be honest."

"But it challenged you?"

"Yes. Then it punished me. Worse than last time. I haven't tried since."

I considered.

"Let's go over the facts we know," I began.

"This will be good," Marco interjected.

"One: We are not dead--"

"We think."

"Two: Our bodies are not here or being affected by what we do--"

‹We hope,› Tobias added darkly.

"Three: There is the distinct possibility we can get control of our bodies --"

"Though that information is highly suspect, Prince Jake."

"Four: The One is a real being--"

"Which means it _can_ be destroyed," Leah added fiercely.

"Five: We can have more access over everything than we currently do, but only if we irritate The One enough and win a Scenario with it."

"Because The One is apparently a really sore loser," Marco muttered.

"Is this how all team conversations go with you guys?" she muttered. Leah apparently had a hard time listening to group conversations, needing instead to focus one-on-one.

I looked around at them. At Leah.

"How long did it take when you didn't do anything?"

Leah shrugged. "What does time mean here? I know I was going nuts. It was longer than I could have taken normally. And I mean, The One didn't let me spend much time with other people. It'd be harder to antagonize it with more people, even if we isolated ourselves from each other."

Ax added, "Our attempt might even end up entertaining it: Infighting. Arguments. Things that tend to come from being with bored with only a small group of people. Humans and Andalites do not cope well with mental fatigue. Mentally it will be very stressful and could invoke paranoia and other unfavorable emotions over time."

I sighed.

We had to make a choice, apparently: "Kill" someone and hope The One didn't feel like letting go of that person - and anger it into a fight. Or, wait and hope we could manage to be not entertaining enough for it without its further antagonization. And everyone was expecting me to make the call, of course.

_Jeez_, I thought, _You'd think if everyone had become such a leader like they act most of the time they could go ahead and make the decision._

Possibly kill someone. Or more than one someone. Maybe even for real, if The One didn't feel like contradicting the situation. Or just wait. Bide our time.

We couldn't afford that. Well, we couldn't afford either of those choices. Both were just way, way wrong.

"Any takers?" Marco said, sounding falsely bright.

"I could do it," Leah said.

‹Prince Jake, we cannot do that,› Ax used his private thought-speak so Leah couldn't hear, ‹I know The One will not do anything to prevent the disposal of Leah.›

I cocked an eyebrow up, ever so slightly, to get more information.

‹I threatened with The One that I would not cooperate with it. If it killed Leah, or Ondrean. The One had been planning to annihilate both. Leah is no longer a collectible. Nor is Ondrean.›

He had rushed through, trying to keep it so Leah wouldn't catch the gap in speech. But it had come off just a little long.

"What?"

I smiled blandly. Leah, fortunately, was poor at reading expressions.

"Nothing," I said, "But I don't think we'll go to that as option one. In fact, I think maybe we're better off trying this 'sitting out' thing for a while. A... More direct form... Isn't necessary – at least, not until we know we can't aggravate it the easier way."

"Does anyone else feel like we just agreed to go to the dentist?" Marco asked.

"Okay everyone," I said, "Let's go to sleep. Avoid anything, everything. No talking, no going outside. We'll see if we can't take it down that way. Unless we're lucky and it decides it wants to challenge us anyway."

"And," I added, looking at Leah, "I don't want to find out anyone has taken it upon themselves to try to... Speed things up."

So, feeling useless for another night in what was becoming a long row, we just all fell asleep.


	13. Chapter Twelve Marco

**Chapter Twelve**

**Marco**

Being silent didn't last that long.

But I was still really, _really_ bored.

I mean, I know what you're thinking. "Nothing? Please, Marco. I do nothing all the time. And you're an Animorph. It should be a pleasure cruise."

Well, you know, during the war with the Yeerks that would have been true. Any of us would have traded an arm and a leg for a good night's sleep, or a normal weekend. Heck, we'd have sold our soul to the devil, if it had taken away our responsibilities. This, on the other hand, was years later.

First of all, if you're thinking you could sit there and do nothing for weeks on end, guess again. You're crazy. No one with a choice chooses to do nothing a whole day when it includes everything from talking to walking. Even if they just drive somewhere to grab something and come back.

Jake was expecting I wouldn't even crack a joke. I mean, for a while, yes, but pretty shortly after we'd agreed I was fidgeting. I like to find jokes. The scenario was just immensely frustrating.

Second of all, Tobias was an Andalite, at least, for now, and Andalites need to graze by running. Which meant he had to go and run for certain amounts of time. And as grazers that had predators on their own planet? His body was instinctively anxious. The boy had energy he needed to get rid of, but he was trying to keep it mellow.

Third of all: We're all veterans. At least, Jake, Ax, Tobias and I. Not being busy was hard, because the memories would come back. Jake was easily the one with the most coping problems – I'm not going to sit there and whine about my past, or how it's the most horrible thing in the world. It is, but for some people it was easier than others. And Jake, poor slob, was having a harder time. I mean, he'd sent Rachel to die. And that had affected him worse than the things I had done in the past. Which frustrated me sometimes, but then again, my attempts to kill people had never turned out successful. Plus, I didn't have the burden of leadership most of the time.

But sometimes, even Leah had nightmares.

I mean, with all of us Animorphs it was pretty well expected. Dreams where we didn't know what body we were in. Or of things we'd done. Plenty of horrific moments, where our insides had come outside or we had to do something we'd remember later. Morphing nightmares like ants, or termites. Nearly being stuck in morph, like when I had become a dog-sized flea.

But even Leah would occasionally wake up, screaming – not exactly something we'd expected from someone who had never been actively fighting in the war. Even if she was a past Controller.

One day, unfortunately, she did the screaming thing while next to me.

"ESSAT! NO!" she screamed, waking up.

And I pretended to keep sleeping even though she was crying afterward. I had my own memories, my own problems. No one else went to find out what was causing her nightmare, so I doubted I was the only person being oblivious for their own reasons. We'd probably find out later anyway.

Maybe it wasn't fair to think that way, we were all just tired, annoyed superheroes. Except Leah, who was by no means a superhero and hadn't experienced what it could be to fight a war with morphing powers. So we figured we'd just address the whole thing later.

I knew someday I was going to feel like a regular jerk about that. But Ax was really the perceptive one on human emotions, at least, when Cassie wasn't around. I can be kind, but a lot of the time I tend to be blunt. A to Z, and all that.

Long story short, though: We all made one _really_ terrible slumber party.

Though in some ways Leah did have me insanely jealous. She had nightmares, sure. But I guess because of her experience as a Controller she could turn herself "off" pretty easily. She'd wake up when she hadn't had a nightmare, look around, see we were still here, and go back to sleep. And she wasted lots of time that way.

When you're problem is you can't sleep? It makes you jealous to see something like that.

By the end of three days, or maybe four, everyone was on their last leg. I felt like I had a hundred cups of coffee with nowhere to go. Jake looked like a zombie – messy hair, circles in the eyes. Tobias looked like someone stuck in an electric socket.

Dreams of Rachel and attempting to kill my mother and everything else was just getting on us. And the lack of movement wasn't working, either: Leah didn't complain much, but she kept rubbing her back and stretching out her arms. And she wasn't the only one – everyone was shifting around, trying to find relief for their back or legs or neck or whatever it was bugging them at any given moment.

"Jake, I vote suicide," I muttered.

‹I agree,› Tobias groaned.

"I volunteer," Ax muttered.

I actually had to stifle a giggle at the idea of Ax suggesting suicide so irritably. He sounded so human in his boredom, and it was pretty entertaining. Even with the topic being as morbid as it was.

"We are _not killing ourselves. _Not even in this weird, fake world where it probably won't lead to anything," Jake said, "Maybe we can slide on not talking instead. Just a little."

"We could go with stories. Well, probably. Narratives probably wouldn't lead to any arguments, would they?" Leah asked.

"I don't know where we'd begin," I said. I mean, we had all fought the same battles. Heard a story from one Animorph, you've heard a story from all of us, except for the narrative.

"I guess we could talk about, you know, outside of the war," Jake said. "Before. After. Stories about... Well, whatever we want. We can make stuff up if we want to."

Ax nodded.

I sighed. I didn't like long narratives. And Jake was not an excellent story-teller. Tobias would have been better, because he spent time listening to the Hork-Bajir back on Earth and it turned out to be one of their talents.

But we had to try and keep this going.

"Fine. I volunteer," I heard someone stupid say.

Oh. Wait. That had been me.

I sighed internally.

"When I was a kid," I began, "My mom made me try to learn to play an instrument --"

"--The clarinet--," Jake interjected, giving me a push at the shoulder.

Jerk.

"_That I did not want to learn to play_," I said loudly, over Jake, "And in one of my less thought-out moments I actually tried to flush it down the toilet--"

"You tried to flush a clarinet down the _toilet_?"

"I was a little kid," I said heatedly, "I had no idea of toilet anatomy."

Everyone laughed at me. Myself included.

"Toilet anatomy?" Jake grinned teasingly, quoting. Almost an old Jake grin.

I snapped a rubber band at him – one of the cool things about living in a world where everything is created when you want it. Then I laughed. "See? We can be completely boring to an outsider and still keep ourselves more or less entertained. At least, a bit longer than we could just sleeping it off. Anyway, that story went pretty well. Who else wants to go?"

"When I was a kid, my cousin Saddler held me down and put a bunch of make-up on my face. And made me walk out in front of my mom and dad," Jake offered.

I winced. Saddler brought some bad memories. He'd died and a person we had tried to trust had used his tragedy to try to take advantage of us, forge a new life. A traitor. And we had a new member of our group, now, that we didn't understand yet. Not that I thought she was like David, but I was tired of historical parallels.

"Maybe we'll skip that one," I said.

Ax didn't offer any stories. It was an Andalite thing. The law forbidding friendships, technology exchanges, and niceties with alien species, Seerow's Kindness, wasn't as strict toward humans since the end of the war. But culturally, it was hard to give that up.

Besides, he would have had to explain everything from the vocabulary to the event. Still, someday I'd have to ask him. I was sure he'd probably had some embarrassing moments in his own life.

Maybe he'd known what I was thinking.

"When I was on the Andalite Home World," He said, "After the war. Another Andalite had irritated me during grazing --"

"Why did I think I wanted to hear this?" I muttered under my breath.

"-- And I told him he had the wit of a combustible engine, which was a pretty terrible insult... It actually reminds me of my last conversation with Elfangor... Anyway. It turned out the person I'd insulted was the Captain," Ax finished lamely.

We all just stared.

"It was humorous!" Ax insisted.

We all burst out laughing, after that.

"'It was humorous'," I giggled.

For a while we just grinned a bit idiotically.

Even Ax stopped getting defensive about our lack of interest in the original story.

"Tobias? Coming around the campfire?" I offered.

He just stayed quiet. Tobias isn't someone with a lack of stories – just, he didn't want to be jovial or open. Not with Rachel dead, and definitely not with Jake present. I thought about pointing it out as a favor to Leah – he had to identify with being unable to morph, and not being one of the inner circle of friends – but I decided against it.

"Stories of 'when we get back'?" I offered.

"To where?" Leah said, "Earth? You're all here illegally. What were you planning on doing? Marching to jail?"

"Well," I admitted, "We actually are hoping that, not being Andalite, we'd escape most consequences."

"Ah."

Leah had made a good point, though. We didn't have anywhere to go after this, at least, not for sure. Probably we could get out of most legal trouble. But other than Ax and Tobias, we'd all just been out. No purpose – or at least, a lifestyle we were totally happy with. There hadn't been a place to go, something had been wrong at home. This journey had sort of been some of our tickets out of here.

"You?" I asked suddenly, "You'll be a free woman, for the first time in years. Where are you going when you get back?"

"Disneyland," Leah said dryly.

Huh. Touchy subject.

"No, seriously," I said - knowing it was probably stupid to push, "Where are you going? What's going to happen? I mean, your family, they probably assume you're dead. Any ideas? It'll probably be great news for them."

Leah looked down, avoiding eye contact like when she had explained how she'd aggravated The One, "I don't have a family."

"Oh."

Tobias's attention caught with that statement.

‹Everyone has family.›

I can be pretty perceptive, but for Tobias of all people to make that statement floored me. He'd grown up without a real family, shuttled between an aunt and uncle. He ended up living as a hawk in spite of learning who his mother was – not to mention curing her of her blindness with the morphing technology. Oh, and his father had been Elfangor - an alien that had died immediately after meeting Tobias.

But everything here had been weird, ever since I'd agreed to go on the stupid mission.

"Strangely optimistic," I said cheerfully to Tobias, "Have you been watching Dr. Phil?"

It wasn't that I wouldn't have liked more answers myself. But I had a feeling Leah's history was not something she enjoyed.

Tobias ignored me. I was annoyed.

We'd gotten along better this trip than others. But sometimes, really, I just want to strangle that boy.

‹Everyone has family,› he repeated, ‹And we can't be secretive or cryptic here.›

He turned to Leah, ‹You were a Human-Controller. You aren't anymore. And you need to start learning to trust other people again. Interacting. Not this reclusive, hiding, talking gibberish.›

Jake and I stared, fairly shocked. Ax seemed less surprised.

I had a feeling he might have indicated a lack of trust toward him, as well.

"Stories are tough to tell to acquaintances," Jake said mildly.

"Yeah," I muttered, "Yeah. But we tell our stories."

"Your stories are public domain," Leah pointed out.

"Is there a problem with telling us your story?" I challenged.

She looked at me. "You don't get it," she said finally, "It's not that no one here's trustworthy. I just... I don't need pity. And I don't like talking about it."

‹We're not going to give you pity,› Tobias said. I guess he thought we could hear just about any news – we'd been through worse, hands down.

"Well, at least, we won't pity you more than we already did knowing you were a controller," I muttered. It was a more honest statement.

She rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Essat made me kill my family, to shut me up."

Well, Leah certainly knew how to keep this subject short and to the point. I wondered who else I'd ever met that could talk about killing their family in one full sentence. Or just how crazy a Yeerk was to kill an entire family to shut up a host.

Then again, we _had_ gone through time chasing after a Yeerk who wanted to kill Shakespheare for the same reason.

"Ah, interesting," I said, deliberately keeping the words boring.

‹You mean _Essat_ killed your family,› Tobias clarified.

She looked down. "What difference did it make, when it was at my own hand?"

"Uhm, maybe because _you weren't in control of yourself_," I emphasized, "Seriously, are we having this discussion? That is beyond even the most strict of Cassie logic. _I_ personally tried to kill my mother multiple times as a free human, because she was a Human-Controller. Planned it out, even tried to execute it.

"Heck, I even allowed my step-mother to get infested so my father would give up on her and come back to my mother. And you want to tell me about how _evil_ you were?"

Did I mention I hate monologues?

Leah just looked at me guiltily. Pityingly. Great. Upset for bringing up something that I had just convinced her was trivial to the mighty Animorphs.

I breathed, remembering some of my own nightmares. My own guilt.

"You were the only warriors fighting for Earth. You were accomplishing something. I was a Human-Controller. All I had to do was be silent. And I wouldn't do that, until it was too late," she said simply. Apologetically.

But nowhere near excusing herself.

Minutes later, she made up an excuse about being tired. Turned, and fell asleep.

We had not exactly convinced her we would be all that accepting and trustworthy.

I felt like scum.

Jake and Ax looked at me disapprovingly. I couldn't read Tobias well, but I had a feeling he was sorry he brought the whole thing up. It had been too much talking.

"Well, one mystery down," I muttered.

I really hoped The One's nasty brain was picking at how boring we were being, right then. I'm not normally one to charge into a fight, but honestly, this was ridiculous. I wanted out. And I wanted to fight something so much I almost regretted not having a battle morph that uses its teeth.

"Really? I doubt that, Joxer," said a voice behind me, "But would you like to prove it? I _dare_ you to try."

I jumped about a foot. Said a really bad word. And turned around to see Rachel.

Jake was over falling for that. He just looked at her, tired, anticipating.

"Is it a challenge?" I asked.

"Of course," She said, flashing white teeth.

I saw Tobias shuddering, with anger. The One was using Rachel's body, repeatedly, to try and strike a chord. Against all of us.

‹Bring it on,› Tobias said angrily. A hoof pawed the ground.

She laughed. Mocking. Sure.

It made me miss the real thing. But this wasn't Rachel. This thing was evil.

"Then let us begin."


	14. Chapter Thirteen Tobias

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Tobias**

Into the belly of the beast.

That was how I felt, being in a real "scenario" as Ax called it for the first time. Everything moved, like I was being swallowed. I could feel reality shifting further, into something entirely new. For a strange moment I could almost feel my true Andalite body, somewhere far away. But I just couldn't reach it, couldn't try to demorph.

Too far away.

As everything shifted, the hawk in me wanted to panic. My Andalite instincts cried "Panic!"

The human in me, Tobias, wanted to panic.

I'm not sure if I would have stayed for anything other than Rachel. Ax and the others, I was starting to feel like I didn't owe them anything. But The One was using the idea of Rachel, the image of Rachel, our memories of Rachel as its own visage. Making her identity as a living thing its own. And it was going to pay to do that to get the better of us.

For Rachel, if no one else.

‹Let's do it,› I said, stealing some of Rachel's old bravado. Trying to invoke some of her strength, as a living person. And her courage.

I don't believe in things beyond here. That she was looking down on us and making sure we'd win. But I know memories are real. My past was real, and so was hers, and I hoped to bring some of that past forward, in my mind.

Higher purpose? Well, yes and no.

We had met higher beings than humans or Andalites that had their own eternal game. Beings that had started off in the regular evolutionary chain like us and had somehow moved on and out of the regular dimensions most people lived in. To us, they seemed almost as powerful as gods. And they had used us, repeatedly. Crayak and the Ellimist. Claiming to be indirect, but really, had they ever been? Moving us place to place, changing time lines, tempting us. Harvesting our weaknesses to get what they wanted.

The choices during our existence had been ours, but their manipulations had been obvious enough for us to know about them. And at least some of us existed partly because they had wanted us to – my own timeline had been preserved when my father, Elfangor, an Andalite prince had been taken back to his old world at the Ellimist's wishes. Crayak had attempted to give Rachel an opportunity to be ruled by her darkness.

Neither hadn't exactly come off to us as the passive observers they claimed to be.

So, in that sense, I guess I _knew_ that at least occasionally the Animorphs and I had been part of a higher purpose. A bigger game, beyond ourselves.

But whether they had drawn us out here for the purpose of their manipulative, eternal game was a different story. And I didn't believe we were following the lines of any particular deity.

As The One reformed our world, I saw a familiar world. Our old middle school. Outside, at night.

Ax began to demorph. For a minute I was shocked.

‹Scenario,› he said, ‹Try to morph.›

_Demorph_, I corrected internally. But I tried.

Feathers, shortening, bones grinding and internal organs disappearing, changing, fitting back into place. And even though I knew it was a delusion, even though I had no idea what I was outside of this world, a _nothlit_ or a hawk, I was so relieved.

Happy. In the delusion.

The thought made me uncomfortable – living content in a lie, but it was true. And it scared me, the idea of being happy in a delusion. In nonexistence, or at least without purpose. How could a person tolerate being without being?

Was that what it had been, to be a Controller?

Jake had been a Controller. And Leah had been one longer, for a lot of years. Even Ax had been infested for a short period once, because Cassie had needed help in a surgery to save his life.

Maybe I'd ask them, at some point. About being without a real existence.

Even though this obviously wasn't the same thing. I mean, this was beyond being trapped in your own mind. This world, this artificial creation, was here.

And I was thinking about what reality means and its importance versus living in delusion when I nearly was crushed by Andalite hoofs.

‹Yaaaahhhhhh!› I cried, flaring, and hawk-hopped my way out of there until I had the ability to move again.

‹Hello, Ondrean,› said Ax.

‹Good to be back.›

I fluttered to a tree and perched, wondering why Ondrean was being kept away like this. It seemed like an awfully long time to keep him away from everyone else.

‹Where do you go? When you're not here, I mean,› I asked, suddenly.

‹I go nowhere. I have not been aware of time between Scenarios,› Ondrean said, twisting a stalk eye at me. His tail moved upward, in a battle position.

Ondrean looked around, respectful to those he had to have recognized as someone in Andalite military. Jake, Marco and I stood out pretty well. And Ax had been his Prince – his superior in the service.

He seemed to glance at Leah with an irritated, tired look. Sort of like someone dealing with a poorly trained dog.

"Where are we?" Leah asked, "I can tell it's part of the old complex. You know, part of the old base. But I'd never been here in particular."

‹Our old school,› I explained, ‹The first entrance we found to the Yeerk Pool.›

Leah nodded and looked around. I didn't know what she was looking for, and it was dark so even in this delusion I couldn't really see any better than any of the people present. Still, she bent over and picked up a weapon. I hadn't seen many Shredders – they looked similar to Dracon weapons – but I still knew the difference, from past conversations with Ax.

I guessed they were a bit used to this.

"Okay everyone," Jake said, "We should probably start this at least the same as last time. Down, as humans, and then morph if it becomes necessary."

"No offense, Jake, but that didn't work well the first time. We really can't think of a better way to handle the situation that came up?"

Jake shrugged, "Not really. We don't even know it'll happen the same as last time."

I hated the indecision. But it wasn't an easy decision to make, and honestly, I had no better suggestions. We couldn't go in guns blazing.

‹Are you coming?› I asked Leah. I didn't like the idea of a person without morphing powers going anywhere near the Yeerk Pool.

Ondrean laughed at the suggestion, and looked like he was about to argue for the Shredder. But before Ax could tell him to knock it off, Leah handed him the weapon.

"Ondrean is a better shot than I am with the Shredder," she said, "And besides, I was a Human-Controller at this point."

She gave everyone a timid smile, avoiding Ondrean's stare, and began her way to the school.

"Strange," Marco commented.

I agreed. I don't think pretending to be a Human-Controller is exactly what I would have expected someone to do. According to Ax it was the worse thing that could happen to a person. Well, except for what was happening right now.

I sighed. Flew to the ground, and began to morph human.

Ax, too, began to morph.

Ondrean didn't have a human morph, but he "acquired" Jake and Marco.

"Uhm, we don't have any clothes for Ondrean," Marco pointed out, "And I'm pretty sure the Yeerks will notice that even if they don't particularly care about clothes."

‹You humans and your clothes,› Ax grated.

"Look around," I said. It felt weird to have a mouth again after so long as an Andalite in this world, "Shredder weapons don't just lay around on Earth. So I guess we're allowed to have certain things."

So we looked around. Ax found a duffel bag.

"This gets weirder and weirder," Marco muttered.

I agreed, but I wasn't about to chicken out.

"Okay, we're ready," I said.

We headed toward the school. No jokes this time. Other than Ondrean, everyone remembered what the Yeerk Pool had been like – huge. Intimidating. Frightening, with the cries of people who had been getting infested.

I kept trying to imagine that. Not having an identity other than what a Yeerk told you to have. Not that what was going on right now felt so different. But it was a tough thought to grasp, anyway.

What I was really worried about? I was worried we'd see Rachel or Cassie. Or Tom. I mean, we really had no idea what we were doing at that particular place, that particular time. Were we going to face the same battle? Or was this like choosing what the game field would be?

"I wonder what the objective is," Marco said, echoing my thoughts, "I mean, I don't want to talk about this like it's just a game, but let's step back for a minute: if we could harness some technology that did this, it would make for some of the most awesome video gaming experiences ever."

"I'm sure we'll get right on that as soon as we escape," Jake said, "Video games. You know, you were rich enough on Earth already."

Marco laughed, "It's not the fortune, or the fame, it's the _game_ that would be epic. People that didn't have permission by their government or the Andalite government to morph could have the experience of morphing, right here."

"You mean, an E version of that, of course, because morphing isn't exactly a pleasant experience."

"Exactly."

I sighed as we climbed in through the window that had been unlocked all those years ago. I felt so behind in this whole pace. And I didn't really know whether I even wanted to try interacting at that level again.

Ax sidled up to me, having morphed human.

"Are you all right, Tobias?"

I looked around at everything.

"Yeah, I guess I'm all right," I started, "I just... The memories, you know?"

He didn't really reply, just walked next to me for a while.

I had missed his companionship, I guess. It'd been a long time since we'd hung out. Even here, in the world of The One, I hadn't spent much time with him. Now that he was spending time as a human, I was spending time as an Andalite. Like we were just never in the same body at the same time.

Always the wrong time.

"Well," I said, "I hope this doesn't take too long."

Approaching the stairs, now.

Stay ready, Tobias. Stay ready.

"I hope Leah is all right," Ax murmured.

"She's a Human-Controller, right? No one has reason to think otherwise."

Yes," Ax said, "Except we are not literally in the past. We are going to have a goal. And just because this represents a past where she was infested doesn't mean she actually will not go recognized as a Yeerk."

"Ah."

It was hard to believe everything wasn't real. The stairs that seemed to go into hell. The screams. The crying. The piers. Everything, right back where it was, like it had never been destroyed or conquered.

I shuddered, remembering my experiences here, wondering so long ago if I'd ever escape alive. When I had been left here.

Then, I saw it.

Cassie. Just like last time.

I nudged Marco. Marco looked, eyes popping open, and he nudged Jake.

Cassie and Jake had loved each other in a past life. Probably they still loved each other now, even though Jake had let her move on when he had realized he was not coping with life after war. Given her no choice, really.

So you'd think he'd lose it more seeing Cassie, again. But he was resolute. He knew it wasn't real. I guess he'd made the right choice, leaving Cassie behind. None of the same regrets, those same regrets that fueled my own anger.

"Okay everyone, same basic goal as before," he whispered, "We need to get Cassie out of there. Tobias, demorph. I'll go to tiger. Everyone else... See if we can't get through without starting a large fuss."

I really, really doubted The One brought us here for a smooth mission. But I didn't say anything and began to demorph.

What was I going to do if I couldn't morph again?

Finished, I flapped hard, getting airborne, and then flew up and over the scene. No one was really paying attention to me.

No one had noticed any of us yet.

I couldn't remember, even, if it had taken this long last time.

But I saw everything as a hawk. The face of every person. The Hork-Bajir. People in cages.

I saw Leah. She was closer.

‹Leah, one of our old friends is going down one of the piers,› I said, ‹The infestation pier. It was our first trip down. We think that's the objective: Get her out.›

Leah didn't say anything, but she turned course, getting closer to the pier.

So far, it seemed to be going smoothly. Until I heard the first scream. And following shock.

"Andalite! There is an Andalite here!"

"There's always an Andalite here. Where did you think he was?"

"Not _him_, another Andalite!"

Chaos ensued and I saw Jake, a tiger, beginning to fight Hork-Bajir. Avoiding people, which was odd, because no one here was real. I guess we still didn't feel comfortable mowing people down.

Ondrean had demorphed. I cursed.

‹Tobias,› Ax said heatedly from below, running on human legs, ‹Ondrean is frustrating me.›

Andalites are a proud species, and we had known that since Elfangor. And we knew it could be a bit of a weakness, from Ax's early days. Unfortunately, they don't like having only two eyes. And they don't believe being in a human morph is ever ideal.

Still, the situation sucked.

Ax was almost to the infestation pier. Ondrean was fighting people to get through, being much less discriminate about who he injured or how he injured them. Marco had knocked a few people unconscious.

It all seemed to be going well. I actually thought we were going to win.

Then I saw Ax. Ax, who had gotten used to acting fairly human compared to most Andalites. Ax, who had been conceptually human for months in this strange place. Ax, my shorm, who was in direct line of Shredder fire.

‹Ax! Move it!› I screamed.

I flapped madly, flying and trying to aim myself ideally for a dive over either of them, but it was too late. I didn't have any thermals helping me, no breeze. It was an impossible situation.

Leah!

She had heard me. She had seen.

Too slow. Too slow!

And as I was sure Ax was going to die, that she wouldn't make it on time, I watched. She jumped.

TSEWWW!

Ax's human morph dropped like a sack of potatoes as Leah tackled him like a football player.

Yes!

She was injured from the Dracon beam. Pretty deeply, but only in the arm. She'd be okay.

She'd be –

INTERESTING!

I heard The One laugh. I was so distracted by the world around me speaking I practically hit a wall. Flare! Slow!

It was insane.

"Cassie" was near the end of the infestation pier. I flew toward her.

Ax. Fighting to protect Leah, who was out for the count since she could not morph to heal her injury. But he wasn't human, and they didn't have weapons. So the fight wasn't going so well.

‹I should have made her take the Shredder,› I could hear him berating himself. He couldn't demorph to fight without cover.

‹Ondrean! Ax needs back-up!›

I saw him beginning to rush over. He didn't want to risk losing the Shredder, but he was going to be over there in about a minute.

_Focus, Tobias, _I thought, _Cassie's the goal. Save Cassie._

At what point did we win? Or lose? What did it even mean in a world where everything was fake. No one thought this was really the Yeerk Pool. No one thought anyone was going to die – except maybe Leah or Ondrean, if they were unlucky.

What was this place?

I paused over Cassie, hovering, aiming for the police officer that had taken her hostage. Thinking, so long ago, that she had been suspicious.

I dove. Jake, liquid metal in his powerful Siberian tiger morph, running toward the scene.

Marco, a bit farther behind, trying to get to Leah, instead, to grab her.

‹It's her arm!› I cried, ‹Focus on Cassie! She can walk! She can walk!›

We weren't going to lose, we weren't.

Couldn't.

He veered course, back toward the reinfestation pier. I could have almost told Ax to go, too, I was so frustrated. It wasn't my reality, and I didn't want to be here.

But Leah was real, and I couldn't ignore that.

I dove!

I struck the police officer.

Jake finished taking him down, and Marco, catching up, grabbed Cassie.

And we ran. I flew. Toward the stairs, as fast as we could.

Ondrean, Ax, and Leah right behind them. Leah clutching her arm, but still fast. Everyone was going to get out.

HEH, HEH, HEH.

I knew then, we were in a bad way.

‹Did you forget me?› I heard the old, familiar malevolent voice in my head.

‹Why would I let you go so easily? The game has only begun.›

Visser Three arose, suddenly, the massive beast from long ago. The first battle. Eight huge legs. Eight huge heads.

And the ability to spit fireballs, of course.

Not really Visser Three. I knew that. Visser Three was in a little box, light-years away, facing multiple lifetimes. That Alloran, his Andalite host body, had been freed. But here, in this experience, he was real and very much attacking in his old battle morphs.

‹Jake!› I said desperately, ‹Jake! We have a problem!›

Did he even hear me?

A fireball flew through the air. I crash-landed on a ledge, where no one could see me. Pressed against the rock, huddling, avoiding the fire.

I heard a tiger's roar, hopelessly infuriated. Cries of pain, getting farther away.

YOU WILL NEVER BE HUMAN AGAIN, TOBIAS. NEVER BE HAWK AGAIN. AND YOU ARE NO ANDALITE, UNLIKE YOUR FATHER.

YOU ARE ALONE.

I shuddered. Trying to keep the exact memory with me, as I did now, of having wings.

And suddenly, I was no longer a red-tailed hawk.

Or in the Yeerk Pool.

The world around me faded, faded away.


	15. Chapter Fourteen Leah

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Leah**

I had never been knocked unconscious before. I had never leapt into battle. Never broken a bone, never had a fracture.

_ I've been shot,_ I had thought stupidly, looking at the hole in my arm like it would disappear. It was so real. The pain. The blood. I knew it wasn't real out there somewhere, but at that moment it was as real as anything else I had ever experienced. _Something really bad happened, here._

But I tried to ignore it, as best I could. I didn't want to be babied. Or act like a youth. I was their age. I should be able to keep up with the same things as they could – that's how I saw it.

For a while, I had run normally, trying to get away. It was just a shot in the arm. Should have been able to keep running.

But I'd passed out momentarily on our escape.

Embarrassing. That's how it had felt when I realized what was happening. When I felt light-headed and my eyesight seemed to go without my asking. Humiliation. Brought down by what was probably just a flesh wound.

The being passed out part though, it was a relief. It was actually a peaceful nothingness, this type of unconsciousness. _If this is what death is like, _I thought, _I think I can handle that. Nothingness. It really isn't half-bad at all, at least, not in the end._

When I had been a kid, I had always wondered how people knew when to jump in front of cars to push others out of the way. Or knew how to time a jump into a bullet to save another person's life. I guessed, where I was now, that most people don't really know – even though I'd never heard of stories where people pushed someone that _hadn't_ been about to really get hit by a car.

Anyway, I hadn't known, other than from what Tobias had been screaming. There had been no sudden lightbulb.

Something bad had been about to happen to Aximili. I jumped in the way. Saved him, maybe.

Logic. It wasn't that hard.

In some way, I felt relief. I hadn't been able to save my own history – had watched powerless while my body had set things up so that my family would die in an apparent accident. But here I was, with control over... Well, over my personal game piece. I'd been able to play a part, and I had.

That part – having made a choice and acted on it, to benefit someone – that had felt good. Maybe not redeeming. But good.

The fight was in the back of my memory. I figured we had lost, somehow. Everything had seemed to be going so well. But I wouldn't be in pain if I'd won, would I? It meant The One was probably watching. We hadn't irritated it or anything. It had found something entertaining in our response, or we had lost.

I wondered when I was going to gain consciousness. Or if I could stay here, in the dark. Go further, even, back into nothing. It would be easier.

But it didn't want that from me, not now. Before I came to, The One showed me myself. My real self. And the others. Three Andalites. Two boys.

And mostly I saw me, tendrils going into my head, going into my neck, going into my arms. They were everywhere. Ravaging my body. Growing further into me. The others by comparison had nothing. They could morph out of it anyway – except maybe Tobias - but they hadn't been here as long. They hadn't been as integrated into The One, the machine.

I wanted to scream, repulsed, defeated, but I couldn't. I didn't want to see what I looked like, out there.

Did I really want out of the delusion anymore? Or was the delusion of The One safer for me? Maybe I couldn't be freed. How could anyone pull me out of there?

As suddenly as I had seen it, I wasn't there anymore.

Conscious again in the collective subconscious that was The One.

_That's sort of a conundrum, or something_, I thought incoherently. _How can I be conscious in subconscious?_

But then the pain hit and I shot up, fully and regrettably "awake."

"Oh... Oh! Ow! Ow!"

‹Leah is awake, Jake,› Tobias called tersely.

I looked at my arm. The Dracon beam had gone through skin and quite a bit of muscle. It was pretty horrific, to see so much into my arm. But it was a Dracon beam, and that had been lucky for me: cauterized veins and arteries meant less bleeding.

It hurt, though. Oh, did it ever hurt.

Aximili was there, next to me. He had taken part of the morphing outfit he wore to try to make a bandage.

"Ugh. No, no! Don't touch me," I said, sitting up. Slowly.

"You need --" he began, but I interrupted.

"There's a first aid kit upstairs, in the bathroom. Bring it down, please. And sterilizer, of some sort," I said. Aximili hadn't known about the first aid kit: Until the Animorphs had come he spent most of the time sleeping outside in an Andalite scoop as though he'd still been an Andalite himself.

He gave me a strange look, and left.

I shuddered. I knew basic first aid from courses from doing volunteer work. But I wasn't looking forward to sterilizing the wound – I wasn't used to anything larger than a small cut or abrasion. And I wasn't even sure I was supposed to – I knew for first aid, basic cleaning was done, but everything else was supposed to be done at the hospital, by a doctor or a nurse or something.

"Will it be okay?" Jake asked. He sounded worried.

I laughed, with some difficulty. It was funny, but I had the crazy feeling that Jake wasn't used to dealing with people so fragile. Which, it was probably true, somewhat, since most of his team had morphing powers.

"I think it probably will," I said, " I'm not sure. Normally you do first aid until someone competent can take over, but none of us here are doctors. Unless someone is holding out on me here."

I gave them a sideways glance.

"No doctors here," Marco promised.

"Well. Then we sterilize it, wrap it up well, and hope it heals," I said. I wanted to sound brave.

I didn't.

‹What are the biggest risks?› Tobias asked, ‹So we can keep an eye out for trouble?›

I wondered how I could be amongst the most famous guerilla fighters in all of history and they'd never even learned about basic medical care. Decided to forego the point, and tried to remember back to the first aid class that had been required with some past volunteer work.

"I'm not sure," I admitted, "It's been a long time – Essat never kept me updated. I think it was..."

_Large burns. Large burns. Large burns._

"I think shock is one of the biggest complications," I said finally, "Shock and infection. But I don't think this is serious enough to cause shock, is it?"

Everyone shrugged.

"I don't think it's that bad," I repeated. There was no reason to be a baby about the situation.

Aximili came back downstairs, with the first aid kit and alcohol.

"Should we really be sterilizing it?"

I shrugged, "No idea, really."

"Ah."

"Should we skip it?"

"Yeah," I said, "Maybe just cool water and loosely wrap it. If it looks like it's getting infected later Tobias can chop this 'arm' off."

Tobias looked shocked. I think. I wasn't really sure about the expression.

I shrugged, "It might hurt, but it's not my real arm."

Marco laughed. I didn't really see what was so funny.

"So," I said, "We didn't win."

"No," Marco said. He looked at Jake.

"My fault?" I asked, looking down, "When I passed out?"

"No," Jake said, "Well, maybe that didn't help. But we needed to get everyone out, and we, we left Tobias behind. It was always Tobias."

Jake looked like he hated himself. And I felt really sorry for him. But a lot more sorry for Tobias.

He looked at Tobias in his Andalite body, "Sorry for failing you again."

Tobias pretended not to hear him. Only, it seemed more likely he was trying to think. Or not to think.

"Well," I said, "Next time. Next time we'll do better."

"Yeah," Marco said, slapping my shoulder, "But in the meantime, welcome to Club Animorph – you are officially a battle veteran."

"For a war that isn't real."

"Yeah, but it hurts just the same while we're here."

I laughed.

"Well," I finished, "I guess I'm going to go to sleep. Or pretend to."


	16. Chapter Fifteen Aximili

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Aximili**

The human Leah had saved me.

What that meant here, I did not know. But I did not believe the action had been done out of the sentiment that The One would rescue her, or myself. She had not taken chances.

None of us had, of course. And we had all saved each others' lives more times than we could count, so the action by itself was not unusual – for humans or Andalites. But we felt more comfortable around her, now believing she was not a likely traitor to the overall cause. She was not simply looking to avoid pain.

Prince Jake, Tobias, Marco and I took turns keeping an eye out for signs of shock or illness. Leah had seemed confident that the injury had not been harmful enough – though it covered a large surface area and went deep, it had not hit anything vital. And even if she eventually suffered from shock, there was probably nothing we could do.

Leah did not want us to stay around. So we attempted to be discreet.

"Hello, Leah," I said, "Is it good weather today?"

She rolled her eyes, "You don't need to be here."

"Ah. But I am tired. So I came here."

"Uh-huh."

Perhaps I was not the best at pretending to not be doing something.

"Should you try to sleep?" I asked. Rest is good for injuries in both humans and Andalites, so it was a logical question.

She winced. "I want to," she said, "but it hurts a lot. Sometimes I almost fall asleep when I keep it up on the couch, but when I start dozing off it falls off and since that hurts really bad I've just been avoiding it."

I paused. Of course, there was a simple solution to this problem – someone could sit next to Leah and keep her arm above chest level. The human circulatory system would take care of things from there, since pressure above the heart in a sitting position would lessen. For an Andalite, it would be much harder to do something like this. But raising something above heart level for tailless bipeds was much easier – either by raising something, or by resting someone at an angle. Human first aid photographs showed helping a person who has fainted by resting their feet on a box or something twelve inches high.

There were advantages to being tailless bipeds – compared to an Andalite. There was not much outside going to medical services to help an Andalite regain consciousness. Though human smelling salts had tended to help as we began commercially trading with them. Of course, losing consciousness was really not very common.

Anyway, it was easy enough to deal with pain or blood loss in human circulation, especially with the arms.

However, Leah had not wanted anyone to touch her. This had not been isolated to the first aid. She quickly had pushed away when we had pulled her up in the Yeerk Pool. And I had been around Leah for months, and she had not ever reached out to be touched, even a handshake.

For humans, touch is important, probably one of the most important social reinforcements one could have. The same is true for others of their primate family. So this aversion to touch was not normal.

I was not sure what caused this aversion. I, as an Andalite, had more of an aversion to close contact – Andalites like to be close, but not touching, as we desire to be ready to run. The idea of long periods of physical contact was unpleasant to Andalite sensibilities.

But I had spent months more with Leah than the others. So, I went and sat next to her on the couch. She had a large foot-rest that made one end long enough for her to lay her legs out in front of her. Gingerly, I took the injured arm and put it around my shoulder, holding the fingers carefully so that it would not slip.

Even though she had rejected the idea of people touching her before, she did not protest. It was probable that Leah had become too fatigued, since the injury had been making sleep difficult.

Andalites have a harder time understanding that idea. We are naturally prone to sleeping problems, historically having been prey, and can go weeks without it during times where we feel more anxiety.

But being human is different – sleep deprivation wears on them rather quickly.

"Why do you avoid this?" I asked, careful not to lean my head back onto the wound.

It was not a comfortable position, even for a human. If I could have leaned my head back, it would have been comfortable – but I had to hold my human neck forward to make sure I put no pressure on the burn . But the action itself, touch, seemed very comforting to my human body's sensibilities. Soothing.

I had a hard time remembering anything so reassuring in Andalite actions that were considered culturally appropriate to do with friends. Most of our gestures of closeness or friendship involved things like touching tail blades. Anything more intimate than a tap tended to be done out of romantic interest or with close family members.

Of course, Andalites are not quite like humans. And this difference – being a grazing quadruped versus a primate – generated a lot of those cultural differences. Well, at least, depending on the human culture. In some cultures, humans were of course far more reserved.

"I don't know, I just don't like it," she mumbled. Since humans use mouth-sounds, the words were hard to make out as she started falling asleep, unlike a tired Andalite using thought-speak.

"Should I let go?" I moved as though I were going to put her arm back up on the couch.

"No... no. Sorry. Want to sleep. Badly."

I sighed inwardly. It was warm.

_You could be human_, I thought, _if you really wanted it so badly._

But I loved being Andalite. I loved _my_ body. I did not want to become a _nothlit_ like Tobias. I did want friends and family that understood my lack of discomfort with being human. The frequent morphing and enjoying human foods. Having human friends.

My friends had not suffered the same issues being humans with an Andalite friend. But they had not been on the Andalite Home World for years, like I had been on Earth. They had not been imbued with the sense of being Andalite. Whereas, sometimes, I felt like a human.

Leah made my life complicated. Only, no, that was not correct. The One was making my life complicated. Leah was just an injured human. Which was also the fault of The One.

Humans on Earth had re-immersion programs for humans like Leah, who had been taken at an earlier age. Or who had been infested for many years. However, as I sat there, I wondered what would be in store for her future. No family, no one to finance or care for her during re-immersion. And besides, integrating past Human-Controllers that had been controlled so long had not worked well, so far. They had missed some critical periods of their development.

It had been done, of course, but I felt Leah's history out here in space would probably further impede her likeliness of ever really functioning in a society. Human psychologists had drawn comparisons between children in inhumane foster conditions in some countries, or in case studies of child abuse and neglect. It would be a fight, if she was going to recover from what had happened.

_Hopefully, she will be one of the more fortunate ones_, I thought. _I would dislike thinking we got her through this situation just for her to fail integrating with things on Earth._

I felt her body relax as she began falling asleep. Her head began to lean back, then to the side with the shoulder that was raised. Onto my shoulder.

I just sat there, considering, for a while.

Until it was Marco's turn to watch discreetly.

"Well, it's about time Ax got a girlfriend," Marco whispered, quietly walking into the room. Leah did not stir.

"Leah is not my girlfriend."

"I was joking, Ax-man. It's my turn to keep an eye on her. If you like, I can try to take over so you can go."

A large part of me did want to go. But I was human. For now. And if Leah did not like to be touched, she may not be comfortable with my changing hands over to someone she had only known... How long? A week? Two? She certainly had not looked toward me before the injury had become too troublesome.

"I think I will stay," I said quietly, "I do not wish to wake up Leah."

Marco sat on the couch next to me, relaxing and stretching out his arms. Like everyone else, he was fatigued by our situation.

"It's about time she let someone help with that, huh?"

"Yes. It is."

Marco lowered his voice, "Do you think it'll be a long time before we have another opportunity?"

I shook my head. "No, The One seemed well entertained. I doubt we will be waiting long, like before."

"Mmmm."

I looked, surprised, over at Marco. He, too, was becoming tired. His head dropped straight back, and then he was also asleep.

It looked less comfortable than lying down – for a human, lying down is the normal mode of sleep. But it looked more comfortable than lying in the scoop outside. And I was holding Leah's arm up above her chest to relieve some of the pain.

Prince Jake came in, seeing me in between Marco and Leah. He smiled, silently laughing at the scene. Then sat at the very end of the couch, also to rest. He pulled out a book. However, I could see Prince Jake's head bobbing slightly.

And soon he, too, was asleep.

_Yes, this is actually very comfortable,_ I thought, _No wonder most humans like this._

I felt sorry for Tobias. Surely he must have missed things like this. And now, in this world, he was Andalite. Not human. Yes. Poor Tobias.

And soon I too fell asleep with the others. That thought in my head, long before Tobias returned from grazing to the house for his shift.


	17. Chapter Sixteen Jake

**Chapter Sixteen**

**Jake**

Everyone was always talking about my leadership, at least, it seemed that way. Like I was some sort of deity, or a demigod. I never understood that. And really, everyone here had become a leader in their own course of life. Ax was a captain, or at least had been. A hero among Andalites, like his brother had been. Marco was the superstar who flaunted himself over television shows, movies, books and all other forms of media. Even Tobias had been fully self-sufficient. The only exception, really, was Leah. Ondrean too, probably. But we never saw him.

I was just the failed leader. And I pretty much hated everyone at the moment. For the guilt, some, but mostly because if everyone had the ability to lead, why had they given the job to me? Why was the burden mine, when it could have been shared so much more? Because I was tired of failing everyone.

This mission was a disaster. A rescue mission for one, and already three people were dead. And even if no one else died, the most we could save were three people. This was, at best, a draw. It was maddening, hurtful. And even though Leah wasn't hurt in reality, I felt wrong about having sent a person without morphing powers into the "Yeerk Pool."

Deep down inside, I was just wondering why I had signed up for another fight. Another battle. Even though in many ways my thoughts were so much clearer than it had been on Earth. Craving the rush, the adrenalin. I craved. This had been the best thing that had happened to me since the last war. Since my friends had made me morph dolphin in Hague. A rush, the thing I'd needed.

Really, we all did. No one had exactly gone back to a life of complacency. Or had grown up, moved on, from all the things we had been during the war. Or had hoped for. It was odd, realizing even Marco had some of that problem to some degree. Yeah, he'd prospered, but we'd all been missing the battlefield.

In a weird way it was like we were having to move on for the first time. To grow up. Accept things. But I wasn't sure if I was ready to move on.

I was thinking about all this on the couch, mostly asleep, sort of pretending to read as the others had crashed. In reality, we wouldn't have been able to doze like this. Or at least, not on Earth – culturally it wouldn't have been considered appropriate, really, unless everyone was crammed into a small tent or something of the sort. Delusion had its up sides, sometimes. Not that I wanted to trade.

At some point I guess I had gone from mostly asleep to truly asleep.

‹Hey, guys,› Tobias said, ‹You've kinda been out a few hours. Or... Whatever this is, here.›

I opened my eyes and sat up just quickly enough to see Marco come to. Ax had been trained for waking up quickly, so all he had needed was the greeting to wake up. It was probably a good thing, too, because he used to be cranky when his sleep had been interrupted.

"Oh! Uhm, we're _all_ on the couch?" Marco looked around. Marco flopped off quickly. "Good thing we don't have any cameras here."

‹What, you're afraid of making the yearbook?›

"Hah ha, Tobias."

Ax was being careful of Leah's arm.

"Someone check it," I said. Quietly, since she hadn't woken up. But for all we knew the burn had healed already. This place wasn't real, anymore than the bodies in it.

Tobias clopped over and pulled it up as little as possible. The clean burn that went through skin and a bit of muscle was still very clear. It was weird. Nothing about this place stayed the same, but her injury had. I guess The One found it entertaining. Or something.

I decided we should avoid waking her up. She didn't look sick, so she was okay to be left alone. Or at least, I figured.

"Let's go walk," I said.

Marco and Tobias came up while Ax moved Leah's arm back down to her side. We didn't think it'd wake her up if she was deep enough to sleep through our movement and talking. And we walked.

I wanted somewhere peaceful, quiet, a place to just hang out and talk. I was still so exhausted from the battle before.

Ax looked troubled, uncomfortable. I wondered why, but I decided it was his own issue.

A new thing, up ahead. A duck pond.

_Well, it's somewhere calm,_ I thought. But it was intimidating. Frightening. No ducks, no bread, no people trying to feed ducks. I guess even mellow can be scary in the wrong situation. But I sat on a bench, looking out over the water. Tobias stopped, and the others sat down as well.

"This isn't working."

"Yeah, it's a mess," Marco agreed, "It's like a ghost town here. Not even a single babe."

I rubbed my hand over my face, trying to wake up, trying to think. "So many mistakes, already."

‹And we're not out yet,› Tobias muttered, ‹I can't believe we're not out yet.›

He sounded angry. I didn't know why. He had been so calm when The One had taken Rachel's form to taunt us. Or, well, me. Like he was just over letting everything trouble him, except me. But I wondered how much of that was just because he didn't feel like talking to me anymore.

Everything, so messed up.

"We need to find something," I said, "We'll have to keep doing the challenges, I guess, because it's the only thing we really know. But there has to be a better way, too, so we need to find it."

"Yes," Ax agreed, "It is taking too long to win a challenge, especially when we do not know how much time is passing. Ondrean said he was completely unaware of time between Scenarios. For all we know, the same thing is happening to us. Which means..."

"Which means it could be _years_ going by," Marco said flatly, "We could be experiencing a whole new lifetime while everything around us disappears. Everyone we know. Everything we were around for. Not to mention if The One is absorbing other things out there, or if others of its kind are. For all we know there's a whole new invasion going on out there, in human and Andalite space."

I contemplated that. I didn't think we'd lost that much time in any limbo, yet, because Ax and Leah both had felt like months had gone by – and by the time we had found them it had. But the idea was pretty horrific, to lose everything we had never known. Or that we were letting another invasion go by.

Maybe some people were okay, living the dream. But I was not. This delusion, this idea of existence, it was all wrong. Evil. Not that there wasn't anything amazing about the scenarios – things shifting and moving. The world changing so much, all the time. It wasn't that there was no temptation to just sit in the passenger seat while someone else drove our lives the way it wanted to.

That's not life, though. It's about the choices. It's about what happens. It's about what's real. If I was going to just sit and try to accomplish in this reality, then I could have just stayed home and played a video game.

"So, any ideas," Marco prodded, "Ideas would be good."

"I don't have anything, Marco. I just know this isn't going to work long-term. And I'm hoping, if we're all looking for it, we find it soon."

"Ah, okay. So we'll just explore in our off-time?"

I guessed so.

We began walking back toward the house. Marco stopped by a McDonald's to pick up some food. Fake food, fake money. But it felt and tasted real.

There were actually a lot of restaurants we could have chosen any day. Ax, in particular, decided to go off to a Cinnabon he'd made within his first week here – apparently he had managed to forget how addicting food was. Or he just hadn't realized the extent of what he could create in this world.

None of us knew exactly what our plan was. None of us had any idea about what would beat this thing, a challenge or something else.

Still, we weren't going to just lay back and take things laying down. We were going to fight. We were.

And I felt better about that on the way home, as we took our fake food – which had only cost fake money – and began eating our breakfasts.

"The great thing," Marco said solemnly, "Is that since it's here all the time and there are no people around but us, Ax can eat as much as he wants and it's okay."


	18. Chapter Seventeen Marco

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Marco**

We started looking and looked for a long time. It felt like weeks, but we weren't sure, of course. There were more scenarios. More tortures.

I had been there. Again. Again, trying to murder my mother. Murder my mother, who was Visser One. The infestation of my stepmother, even as I rejoiced that my mother would be joined with my father again.

Jake. Losing Tom. Losing Rachel.

And we had been there, helpless as Essat, controlling Leah, had set it so her house would burn up, destroying the people inside while looking like an old electrical problem.

Inside, I wondered what really had made Essat do it. Not many Yeerks were that crazed to get a host under control. And young hosts tended to be easier to control. So the simplistic answer of Leah not shutting up seemed a little far-fetched. But she hadn't told us yet, and I guessed if she ever was going to it would be when she felt more comfortable about us.

I could have easily been wrong, though. Some Yeerks had done crazy things in the past in order to get the silence of their host body.

The death of Hork-Bajir, the death of people, and maybe I could have made it a joke. Literally, our life was on rewind. But it wasn't really funny.

Leah, unfortunately, seemed to be getting an infection. Or at least, as much of an infection as you can get in a fake world. It was odd, that her injury remained. And we didn't know what to treat a fake infection with, so we just had to hope we got out of there before things got too bad.

We blamed it on her inability to morph, and we kept her out of battles after that. She didn't really appreciate it, but since her injury wasn't getting any better she wasn't given any option. In any case, at least we knew she would listen to Jake.

Everyone ate out and went to places and everything they could. While we did, the rule was that we tried to find, well, "the rule." What was keeping us in this world. How to get out of it, if we couldn't win challenges.

And we were not doing well in challenges. It was like me playing against my dad with the Playstation: We were toast. There was not a single break. And it was killing us, knowing we were having all of these problems.

I tried to find other things to do with my time, occasionally. Personal entertainment.

"So, Leah, has anyone ever taught you in the ways of _loooove_?" I drew out.

Who knew someone with an arm that was falling apart could run after you so fast? With a self-created mallet?

I didn't like her _that_ way, even, so it hadn't been worth it. To be honest, I wasn't sure I liked her much at all – but irritating her sometimes got amusing results, since she wanted to be taken so seriously all the time. I thought I'd get a laugh, but I eventually decided her sense of humor was just nonexistent. Though, to be honest, if I'd been a Human-Controller for over six years, maybe I wouldn't have had a sense of humor either. At least, not a matured sense of humor.

Sometimes, I wondered if that's why she didn't mesh well with anyone. Or why she came off as someone we should watch instead of an equal. Most Human-Controllers I knew had been infested with adults. But she'd missed out on all of her teen years. And I had a feeling that even as her body had changed, she still had the mind of a girl that thought boys were made of cooties.

It was just weird, meeting a girl I didn't even think of. And I mean, we were in a world with literally no other girls.

Which was probably why I was thinking about things so much.

"I could have had any girl I wanted," I groused to Jake one day, "I could have had a sea of girls. I was so famous. I was a movie star, I did TV shows, I did books. I was every girl's man. And I'm stuck out here with nothing but gross, sweaty men and someone I have about as much attraction to as an android."

Jake laughed. "Well Marco, I'm pretty sure any one of the Chee could have been the girl of your dreams without too much effort."

I pretended to slug him, then laughed. The Chee had been an android race on Earth, created by a very wise species long ago called the Pemalites. Of course, we hadn't ended on good terms with the Chee, but they did have very amazing holographic capabilities and had helped us when they could with intelligence regarding the Yeerk forces.

In any case, I tried to remind myself that there was socializing to be done in the future. This existence of being with Jake and the others and Leah being the only girl? Totally temporary. Totally.

Yet I had this creeping suspicion I might find myself eating those words later. And what was I going to do if we were stuck out here for years? Or any of us, really. People don't do that well in space on long journeys with such small groups of people. And all of us knew that – at least, Jake, Tobias and I – because we'd already had to do it for months with six people.

Anyway, Jake and I were walking around a self-created mall. A break away from the rest of the team. And really, why not? Everyone was trying to find a weakness in the system. And if we ended up in one of the Scenarios, everyone would be brought to the same place.

Well, probably.

So we went by the food court, the clothes shops. But we couldn't imagine people. Obviously, I guess. No one really knows a person well enough to duplicate them exactly.

"You know, Jake, we could totally do karaoke at that bar over there. No one to tell us not to!"

I was gesturing to an old place that was not really a bar. It was a café that had liked calling itself a bar back where we came from.

Odd, what this place could be.

Jake was considering it. I could tell he was. But just as I was about to goad him, the world swirled. Lost shape.

Nothing seemed to know which way it was going. Everything would swirl out of place and come back again. I hadn't been through this before.

"Let's get out of here!"

"Says you, I'm already gone!"

We hauled behind out of that world. The mall not being able to fall in on us didn't matter, we wanted out, and we wanted out fast. We were hauling.

Conveniently, the mall was pretty much right next to the house. We tore in there, looking for everyone. We saw Ax, sitting in a chair by the couch, next to a Tobias standing in place.

It was so weird to see Tobias as an Andalite and Ax as a human. I'd thought maybe I'd get used to it. But I couldn't. Not that I could get used to Tobias as a human.

Everything was just wrong, here.

"Ax!" Jake grabbed him. "Ax, what is this? What's going on?"

Ax looked at Jake, troubled.

"The last time I felt this happen, it was The One bringing in you, Tobias, and Marco," Ax said, "And the time before that, it was eliminating someone. I assume either situation takes a large amount of its energy."

I shot upstairs, looking for Leah.

Bad move.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

A hairdryer collided with my head mid-air.

"Ow, ow, OW!" I yelled, "You stupid witch! I was trying to make sure you're still alive, next time imagine a stupid lock on the door! Or make a new bathroom!"

Like I said, we didn't mesh so well.

Of course, Ondrean might not be okay, but we couldn't check on him. I ran back down.

‹Marco. What happened to your head?›

"Let's just say Leah's okay," I grumbled. Trying to remember that Leah was the only girl. And had spent most of her months here alone since Ax had stayed in his scoop. And hadn't exactly required a door lock up until this point.

Jake snorted. Ax looked confused.

"What happened?"

"I just... never mind," I mumbled.

But Ax just looked at me inquisitively.

The boy was so frustrating. He'd been acting human for months in this world. He'd been with us years. And he knew about human clothes and bathrooms and things like that – some people have this image of aliens being all naïve. In truth, Ax knew a lot of things. He just seemed to act like he didn't know.

And what he did know, he didn't always understand the point to. Or how to use something in a culturally appropriate manner.

But in this case, I thought maybe Ax was attempting to be humorous. I mean, like I said: He knows what a bathroom is. He knows what clothes are. He goes to the bathroom. Andalites don't like doing that stuff in front of anyone anymore than humans do.

He never really explained to me how they got _around_ that, since they lived out in the open, but...

"It's just a, uh. A clothes thing, Ax. That was it."

"You humans and your clothes," Ax said sagely. I wanted to punch him.

Tobias sniggered. God, how I loathed him right then.

"We thought we'd, ah, look around," Jake said, trying not to laugh. He was starting to get more expressive out here again. More attentive. Though, at the moment, really I didn't want him to start getting an attitude.

So Tobias, Marco, Ax, Jake and I left. Well, actually, we waited for Leah, too, but we had to persuade her to come. She obviously didn't recover easily from accidental humiliation like that. Or maybe just being vulnerable, period.

I don't think she stopped giving me an evil glare the entire time we were out looking for... Whatever.

The world had stopped its weird swirling, fading in and out thing. But we didn't find anyone.

We wouldn't know for a while if what had happened was related to Ondrean.

Everyone headed back to the house. But, on the way back, we felt everything moving again. Differently – not shifting or weak. Just a sense of being swallowed, as the world changed, became something new.

"A Scenario," Ax said.

We were all afraid. Lost. Scared. But no one so much as trembled when the world descended on us.

"Look for a way out while we're there," Jake hissed.

The plunge happened. Things cleared.

I knew where we were.

‹The staged fight,› Tobias recalled, ‹Stopping the destruction of the Hork-Bajir colony.›

He began to demorph from Andalite to hawk. Then, he began a Hork-Bajir morph.

"Yeah," I muttered. I felt sick. But I knew what to do.

I felt the changes take place as I morphed a mountain goat. Cloven hoofs. Longer hair. A strong body made for going up cliffs.

Leah, unable to morph, tried to make sure she stayed out of the way by going into the trees. Ax made sure she had a weapon this time, in case we ended up being unable to morph.

I doubted that would be an issue. That wasn't how things had happened.

A few seconds later, Ondrean appeared.

‹Ondrean,› Ax said tersely, ‹We cannot have you here as an Andalite, and you have no Earth morphs. Like Leah, you should take cover.›

Maybe he didn't have much fondness for human civilians, but Ondrean really did know how to take an order from his prince. Well, at least when it didn't involve morphing human. He turned tail and ran to the trees where he could be discreet, invisible.

‹Well,› I said, my morph complete, ‹Let's go.›


	19. Chapter Eighteen Marco

Chapter Eighteen

Marco

This wasn't exactly my first time in this particular scenario. Using my past of ruthlessness against me was not a new game for The One. And I knew what I'd find.

My mother, again. At the edge. Ready for me to push her off of a cliff, not knowing I was about to. Though in this reality we already knew Jake wasn't dead, which meant he could try to do it. That didn't make it easier to watch though. To remember.

Around me, we fought Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Visser Three was off in the distance. I could practically hear one of my father's classical music CDs off in the distance, with all the noise drowned out.

That wasn't right, though.

Tobias used a Hork-Bajir body to get up through the trees. I had my goat. I doubt Leah was keeping up, but Ondrean was probably out there somewhere. Jake, tiger.

Remembering that Rachel had been here, close to me for this battle, since we thought we had suffered causalities.

Everyone thought I didn't care. I did. I did. We weren't a thing, but man, what I wouldn't have given for her to be around right now, like it really was back then. And I remembered her comforting me afterward about my mother – or at least, informing me there hadn't been a body, and god, I missed her and I even missed the old war if it could have meant she'd be back and everything would be the same. She had been everyone's death, after all. She'd been one of us.

Tobias tended to think along the lines of everyone else not being allowed to grieve. Like he had to have hurt worse, because she was so important to his tie of being human – even though he had never given up anything to be with her. But even though he was hers – way more than she would have ever been his – that wasn't the way life worked. We had been a team, and so Rachel had been all of ours. And Jake, who had to make the decision, did so knowing the person it would come back to most was actually him, in many ways.

Not now, though, Marco. Up the mountain. Up.

My mother wasn't here. She wasn't in danger. She was light-years away, on Earth, my planet of blue and green and white and, well, smog.

As I was going up, I saw something I had not seen before in any reality.

A stout creature, red and reptilian looking. It had scales like an alligator's back down its long arms and somewhat shorter legs, rough and thick. It walked on two legs, but I had the feeling it could be completely comfortable on four. Snake eyes, and two feet not too different from the Hork-Bajir. Teeth, long and vile, not the neat bark-grinding teeth of the Hork-Bajir.

I had a feeling this thing was all carnivore.

Somehow, looking at it, I thought "Napoleon." I mean, it didn't look human or anything. I more just mean because it was short but tough looking. And even though it didn't wear clothes – like most aliens we'd met so far – it looked like something that was out to conquer anything around it.

It looked confused, but also very angry. Actually, probably mostly angry, like confusion was an alien emotion to it. I stared at it as it began speaking in some language I couldn't understand.

I did not like the tone it was giving me. Though who knows if you don't understand the language?

But after only a few moments it charged me, and I ran, not knowing what it was or whether it was dangerous, but deciding that it looked dangerous enough for me to not want to have to face it as a goat.

It kept going for a while, still talking in its strange snake-like language, and suddenly...

‹_Kelbrid_!› Ax cried, shocked, overhead somewhere in a harrier morph.

_Kelbrid?_

‹How do you know?› I cried, frustrated, ‹I thought no Andalite has ever seen one!›

‹Andalite military cadets have translating microchips installed. After we listen to a language a certain length of time it begins deconstructing and translating the language for us. It's based on a complex fluid algorithmic equation that detects patterns in the...›

‹Okay, okay! Shut up!› I yelled, ‹This is not the time here. The thing is chasing me and I have no idea how to get away from it!›

‹If The One is not _Kelbrid_ itself,› Ax said, ‹And clearly it isn't. I wonder... I wonder what this means about its location.›

Ax somehow does not get distracted very easily even in strenuous situations. It's probably part of why he was such a good captain.

As I was running away from the _Kelbrid_ I saw enemy Hork-Bajir. One slashed Jake. He roared, a tiger suddenly with one less arm.

I saw Leah, taken hostage, also slashed, accidentally by the "Controller."

This no-morphing thing was a pain in regards to that girl. She would have died, if we stayed, and The One had decided to keep her around – because Ax had threatened it, partially, but probably also because she had become interesting again when we had to deal with her injury. And that was it. We had lost. We were gone from this reality, before the battle had even gotten halfway..

Everyone came back, quickly, Andalite and human. To our little imaginary world.

"Ugh! That is such a pain!" I cried, "We could have won! We could have won!"

Something... Something, nagging at me. I looked at everyone, Jake, Ax, Tobias, and Leah.

Leah.

Leah!

"Leah!" I grabbed her suddenly, "You're not cut anymore!"

"Hey, get off of me!"

She pushed me away roughly – she didn't like being touched. But then she looked to see the obvious: She had been carved when the Hork-Bajir had grabbed her, but now she wasn't.

"Well, yeah. So? It's not like any of you guys are still chopped up, the Scenario's over."

I looked at everyone. Everyone looked at me.

"Does no one else _see_ this?" I asked pointedly.

"The burn!" Jake blurted, "The burn is still there, but the cuts aren't!"

‹Prince Jake. Perhaps certain injuries are actually inflicted upon The One when it keeps us in a state of delusion. In which case...›

"We can burn ourselves out of here," Jake said excitedly, "We can burn the beast down!"

Everyone grinned.

"I wonder why that is," Leah said, "Why it would be hurt by something, I mean."

"I don't know," I admitted, "But it's the best shot we have. Maybe it changes parts of its physiology or whatever to help stimulate certain things we wouldn't feel otherwise. And maybe some things it doesn't control well enough."

I grinned, though.

The One was tough.

But it was not all powerful. And it was going down.


	20. Chapter Nineteen Tobias

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Tobias**

We started planning that night. We started wishing for dry forests Matches. Gas.

No one was expecting to get any of those things. But on the other hand, we had some control over what existed here. The One didn't control everything. And it was purposefully living outside our minds for its entertainment, at least theoretically, so we were hoping it wouldn't have any real warning system set up.

More than that, we were hoping this would work.

Leah was worried. I was worried. She couldn't morph. If I couldn't morph out, it could be dangerous. Everyone else was planning to immediately take whatever morph they could that was tough, but not intelligent enough to – if our theories were correct – be controlled by The One. Except Ax, who was going to look for survivors. Still, he at least knew he'd be able to morph somewhere.

With luck, they could get us out quickly.

If things went badly.

"What about the _Kelbrid_?" Ax had asked as we were planning. They weren't out and about with us, at least, not at the moment. We didn't know if they were somewhere we could save them. Or if they were, how we were going to.

Jake shrugged.

"We'll try," He had said.

But there's only so much that can be done, of course.

It took a lot of work. We had been getting things we wanted, yes, but it took a lot to sit there and remember our own forests in the middle of a drought. During times that had not been particularly pleasant, at least, for me as a hawk or Ax as an Andalite. Not that anyone really loves droughts and hot weather to the point where they cause widespread fires.

We planned a long time. And we didn't get everything we were thinking about. But we did get a lot of woods. We did get a lot of things for, say, grilling things outside on Independence Day.

"I hope this works," Leah said.

‹I agree,› I muttered. I also hoped I'd be able to morph the heck out of there if and when it worked. It was awful, to be somewhere so long, and not know whether or not I'd still have my wings at the end. Not that I would tell Leah that, because she couldn't morph to begin with. So the last person I needed to feel sorry for me was her. It would have been too much.

It was probably riskier for us more than anyone else around. At least, assuming what we knew was correct. We wouldn't get out as fast.

Of course, this was all based on hearsay. No one was sure. So no one was very content.

Overhead, we felt the world roll. Maybe newcomers. Maybe people "leaving" which had become our euphemism for what happened if The One no longer wanted someone around. But something was going on. And we needed out.

Ax worked on making it so that once everything started it would catch quickly, continuing to go. Marco helped with that; he was easily trained for that type of thing. Jake, Marco, Leah and I went out to spread dry grasses and wood across our world, too small, too large.

I thought about life here, the last few weeks, or whatever it had been. However long I had been here.

I could still morph, here. But it was only at The One's whim, during its entertainment. I could have said I'd rather stay in the lie. Really, though, even if I were Andalite now, how different would that be from how I'd lived the last few weeks? And how bad had it been?

Without my family around, without being forced to do things all the time... I guessed I could. If I had to. I didn't want to, but I could live. I could.

If I were Andalite now, I wondered if Ax would help me learn how to act Andalite. I didn't want to offend him by asking him, while he was human. I knew he had to hate not having his legs, his tails, his eyes. No matter how he felt about humans, I knew he was proud of what he was.

Someday, regardless of what I was – and what I was still confused me every day – I wanted to be that way. Proud. Strong. Certain.

It had been something I had always admired about Rachel.

Maybe I couldn't have that. What makes a person who they are? Memories? Genes? Soul? No one knew that. Probably no one would ever know for sure. Ax himself didn't know. But I could dream. Hope, maybe even work on myself a little. I didn't want to always be uncomfortable with who I was, or my thoughts. I wasn't a middle schooler anymore. So maybe there was hope.

Being Andalite for a few weeks had made me confront a lot of thoughts. And it was complicated, but I didn't want to be miserable my whole life. I could be alone, but not miserable.

Even thinking that, though, I was bitter. Bitter at the idea of not hiding. Bitter at knowing Ax's parents did not accept me as their grandchild, not even when they had been given Elfangor's _Hirac Delest_, a final memoir by him admitting everything.

My own family – not Loren, I mean, my aunt and uncle – had tried to claim me when they found out who I was. What I had done. Of course, I wanted nothing to do with them and they couldn't make me, since Loren was both my mother and competent to take care of me when morphing powers had cured her blindness from a prior accident.

I wasn't going to let my aunt or uncle have me back now that they saw me as a cash cow. And they had wanted, unbelievably, to talk about how wonderful my life had been and how well they had treated me.

Ax had tried to introduce me to his family. He'd taught me a few things about being Andalite.

But his parents just hadn't accepted it. A human? It had been laughable to them. Being a _nothlit_ in their younger child's body was going to be interesting, if that was the result of this. Of course, it could easily be we'd never get back to any of our homes again.

I'm not sure most of us were actually that unhappy about such a scenario. Marco would be the only one that came to mind, but honestly, if he'd loved it that much he'd probably be on Earth right now, like Cassie.

How had she moved on? How had she left all this, all of us behind?

I wondered if I had moved on, before Ax's abduction. Or if I had been needing this opportunity to change. Or if the feeling came only from being detached from Earth and my hawk form for what felt like so long, already, most of the time.

Whether any of us would actually move on, from the war. If we would ever stop living back then. But then, we hadn't exactly been making lots of new memories.

Could we get past this? I wanted to believe we could. But I wasn't sure if that's what we had been made for.

"Tobias?"

I looked over, and saw Ax approaching.

I smiled, with my eyes. Expression wasn't natural to me in any form – hawks don't have expressions – but I had been learning.

‹Yeah, Ax?›

He smiled back.

"I hope, Tobias, that you end up wishing for what you get."

I could have been offended, at the idea that I am never happy with what I have.

But it would have mostly been a lie to say otherwise. The Ellimist had seen it, hadn't he? So why wouldn't Ax?

I forced a laugh.

‹I hope so too, Uncle. I hope so too.›


	21. Chapter Twenty Leah

**Chapter Twenty**

**Leah**

We were ready. Or at least, we were as ready as we were going to ever be. We'd set what we could, to make it so everything would be as hot and out of control as possible. Everything was as perfect as Aximili could have made it. All in its place.

We didn't set anything off right away.

The Animorphs and I went down to the duck pond. Relaxing, having a good time. We fixed food, brought some junk food from the restaurants that weren't really restaurants. Celebrating what would hopefully be our freedom. We hoped.

I guessed even if it didn't work, we'd be free, in a way, in our own deaths. Unless what we had learned what was wrong. And it certainly could have been. None of us understood The One. But the evidence seemed fairly concrete, since Marco else had suffered from Dracon fire in a later Scenario and we had found that even though he came back not morphed and still suffered an injury.

Reality might not have been real here, but there were apparently some consistencies.

"Will anyone miss this?" I asked lazily.

"Yeah, as much as I miss Visser One," Marco said dryly.

"There are some interesting things about it," pointed out Tobias, "It's not like this isn't cool in any way. I mean, I might not be able to morph in reality. Probably, even. So being here, I get to keep all that."

"But it's not _real_ if you have to be in a dream to do it," Jake said. "There's nothing real in this place."

But he kept himself quiet after that, not meaning to have spoken to Tobias. He seemed to carry some timidness about interacting with him, like he wasn't really sure what to expect, or do, or say. But from the little I knew about this group dynamic I knew Tobias and Jake had run into some really terrible history, so I didn't ask about it. If it was that important, I'd find out eventually.

Plus, I didn't exactly want to come off sounding like a kid, whining to know why.

It wasn't that there was nothing amazing about being in a world of wonders, where we could have what we wanted, when we wanted. But what we had here wasn't real. And that truth was something we needed to feel that our lives had purpose. Meaning. Otherwise, we were just a game piece to The One's whim.

I guessed the Animorphs were used to that. They had told me about the Ellimist when I had asked about why Tobias was a hawk outside of this reality. I couldn't decide if I liked that idea, or if I felt sorry for them. Being chosen seemed like it would be an honor, but they didn't seem happy about it. Still, they were wanted.

Maybe I could feel jealous about the last part only. You don't need to be part of some cosmic giant's manipulation in order to feel wanted or needed. It wasn't who thought they were so important, in a way, it was just their importance to someone, period. And they were important to each other.

Someday, like being a grown-up, I wanted that. To matter to someone.

We continued the festivities for a while. They weren't really festivities though – we weren't really talking to each other much. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts of what getting out of here would mean. Or what our next steps were, especially considering the possible situation we had with the _Kelbrid. _

No one wanted to talk much. Everyone was worried, especially Aximili and Jake. I guess it weighed on them, the decision of being leader.

I was antsy. I wanted to get it done. Free, or dead.

Maybe I wasn't ready to be a real person again yet. Or at least, not a grown-up. Maybe I never even would be, because I had missed out on so much. The others talked about subject I'd never even thought about. And it made me feel self-conscious, or at least self centered. Ashamed, at times, that I had been so much in my own world.

So maybe asking to be a grown up was too much. But I _was_ ready to be out of this limbo.

I knew that.

Our little celebration was dying down. We couldn't stay here forever. We had to go on, whichever way that was.

"Can we go yet?" I murmured, a bit giddy, on an adrenalin high.

Marco rolled his eyes at everyone and then giggled. I didn't know why, but it was probably just nerves. I hoped. I didn't need everyone making fun of me, definitely. I knew I shouldn't be so self-conscious. But I couldn't seem to help it, at least, not yet.

"Okay, everyone," Jake said, "Ready.

"Set.

"Go."

I pulled out my recurve bow and drew an arrow from my quiver. Lit the arrow.

_Flit!_

Miss! I couldn't believe it. I had messed up. I hadn't hit the mark, a pile of grasses by one side of the McDonald's of our world. And it hadn't exactly been a small target.

I had missed.

Archery had been a large part of my life. When I was a kid - well, a younger kid - I had been obsessed with Greek gods and goddesses. I wanted to be Artemis, the hunter. Well, without actually hunting anything. I just liked the bow and arrow. Shooting targets. And my parents had put me in archery after I had pestered them enough about wanting to learn to use the bow and arrow.

I couldn't believe with all that experience the best I had done was miss something so large it could have been the side of a barn. Even if I hadn't done it in as long as I had.

But at the same time everyone else was in rapid action. It was almost like a tape on fast forward. Setting flames to areas that would take off, then fueling everything around.

Madness!

I shot again to make the shot I had missed and ran in, joining everyone else in setting the near things on fire. The restaurants were an obvious target, since everyone knew those things were full of oils and other flammable items. As long as reality worked in some ways like we assumed it would, the restaurants would be our biggest hit.

And they turned out to be. They caught, blew, into huge flames.

The world shook, and I trembled. Afraid. But I kept going.

Eventually everyone had gotten everything anywhere near us – at least, in our minds – on fire.

"The pond!" Jake cried, and everyone ran, letting the fire go up. Everywhere.

I jumped into the pond, watching the flames quickly grow. Six feet. Ten feet.

Did flames really grow that quickly? I had no idea.

I could hear the world literally moaning around me. Things pulsed, shifted, trying to reform. But it wasn't working. Whatever this thing was, it couldn't take the heat and the dry. And we had just put its biological system into an emergency it wasn't coping with well.

I hoped it would work soon, before the "air" around us became toxic.

I hoped, even though in the past I had wished for it, that I wouldn't die. Not now that there was something to do.

I hoped I would wake up soon.

I hoped...

Suddenly, I was no longer in a delusion. I was where I belonged. Not eased into reality like I had been into the delusion, but dropped painfully. Like skydiving without a parachute.

Burning! I still felt myself burning! All around me.

I tried to move, but I couldn't. I hadn't moved my own body in years. _Years_.

_No offense, Leah, but you should have thought about that,_ I thought in a haze of pain, _There's __no reason the Animorphs would have known that I couldn't move, and you sort of did know that. Stupid thing to forget._

So I sat. Excruciating pain, burning all over as the tendrils started to shrivel and die from.. From what? Overdosing its own system? Was it over-saturating itself with a substance like any human can do to cause certain illnesses? That was the best explanation that I had for this. But I was just a kid in my mind – I had had a Yeerk in my head for a lot of relevant school years. But I thought maybe it was like having an allergic reaction to something. Or that maybe we'd instigated something else, kind of like when a person has too much sugars until their body stops making glucose.

Poison. Poisoning your body with its own system. I guess most things are capable of having that problem.

The pain. It was overwhelming.

I couldn't move. I kept trying, but I couldn't. Too many tendrils in me. Over me. And I even as I tried to move a finger, ever so slightly, I couldn't. I kept trying, madly demanding for the movement in any finger.

_Move_, I told my body, _move_. But I was like a puppet with the strings cut. Essat and her mind had been directing my body for so long, and I hadn't so much as thought about moving after she had killed my family. I hadn't tried, just stayed locked up in my head while she had commanded me.

Hadn't even tried.

Sometimes, people get sick or injured in ways that prevent their body from moving as they want them to. And when whatever it is has gone away or been taken care of, people still can't get their body to do what it wants, at least, at first. I guessed that was what happened to me. My mind forgot how to move everything after those years.

Hosts felt that a lot. I knew how it felt to be a Controller, fighting or not fighting. I hadn't ever known anyone to have it as bad as I did. Maybe I was weak. Or maybe it was because I hadn't even done anything when Essat had been feeding after she had destroyed everything. Who knew why I couldn't move to this extent?

But it hurt so bad, and I wasn't going to stop trying.

I kept commanding, willing my body to move at my own thoughts and not hers, but nothing was happening.

Nothing.

Nothing.

In the end, I didn't move myself out from the mess. Losing consciousness, already wishing I were dead from the pain, I barely noticed it.

Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!

I didn't see or hear so much as vaguely felt what I knew would be an Andalite tail blade.

And then, arms that seemed stronger than any human lifted me up, and rushed me away, as I faded, once again, into the black.


	22. Chapter Twenty One Aximili

Chapter Twenty One

Aximili

I felt the conditions degrading around me rapidly, and soon, burning, was aware of my true Andalite body again. It was painful, poisonous, a sensation everywhere that seemed to strive to rule my thoughts. I did not have long to get out.

Fwapp! Fwapp! Fwapp!

I cut through tendrils holding me down and leapt up, stumbling over my own Andalite legs that had been abandoned so long. I did not want to morph, since I was to look for surviving people in need of help.

I saw Jake and Marco, attempting to morph. But they were morphing too slowly, and so I helped them break from The One. The tendrils, reaching into their bodies as mine had been, made it for grisly work. But as they were freed they sped off, morphing as they too would look for survivors. Ondrean, or the _Kelbrid_.

My stalk eyes scanned, and I caught the sight of dark brown hair.

Leah!

I almost started a gallop to cut her free, but Tobias cut off ahead of me.

Still a younger me.

‹I got her!› he yelled, ‹Look for Ondrean!›

I paused, wondering if Tobias had already attempted demorphing. I was fairly certain it would not work, but if I left him if he hadn't... Well, then I could be taking his last moments of time away from him.

However, he was already cutting her out of the mess of tendrils that made The One. Marco and Jake were running over, to help pull her out and get away from the thing that had bound us. We would not, of course, be able to fly away from the spacecraft, but we were going to be very sure of its death before we left anyone around or tried to decide what to do about our spacecraft situation.

I bolted, and looked for Ondrean. Ondrean was also trapped, not having been aware of our plans, and not conscious as a result of having been unprepared. I cut him out, quickly as I could. The work was short, and I helped him up, waking him, carefully dealing with the burns I assumed were chemical. Whatever this creature used to cause all its delusions, it was not made to deal with every situation.

We moved on, looking for others. Ondrean, considering his temporary injuries, was behaving admirably. Bravely. Of course, we expect all Andalites to be brave. However, the other Animorphs and I knew this was not so, and I considered it lucky Ondrean was a part of my team even if he had not always shown himself to be very skilled.

I did not find the _Kelbrid_ as I saw this terrible predator succumb to its final moments. Eventually, Ondrean and I left the scene fast as we could in order to find Prince Jake and the others. It took quite a while to find them on a spacecraft so large, especially without any technology with us.

But we found them. Eventually.

Ondrean mostly decided to stay quiet, tired and wishing to rest. Ondrean really did not like speaking unless there was something important he could add, so it was not unusual for him to fade off while others around him spoke.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Prince Jake.

‹Wait for a while, and then dispose of it,› I said, ‹We should compile and keep some DNA from it to be scanned, as well as other organic matter for study by Andalite scientists. The rest we can jettison.›

I was not going to assume that there was only one of this foul thing. I assumed there were many, with collective memory – because, as Prince Jake and the others knew, it was also operating the Blade Ship – wherever that was now.

‹After this is dealt with, we'll have to sort out how we are going to leave,› I muttered. The craft was simply too large for a crew our size.

"In the meantime," Marco said, "What do we do about Sleeping Beauty over here?"

They brought Leah forward. Just cut of the tendrils, having been in one spot for months more than even I, beautiful was not the way to describe her, not even by human standards. It was likely much of the scarring would be permanent. I shuddered at the leftover tendrils Prince Jake and Marco had not removed yet, as well as things that had been on her simply from being immobile for such a long period of time. But most of that would go away after the ability to care for herself had been presented. And she would heal, given time.

"I know," Prince Jake said, "Shouldn't she be up now?"

‹Actually, Prince Jake, I doubt Leah is asleep or unconscious. More likely she has only been able to move freely while her Yeerk was feeding. In a small contained environment with little crew? The time could have been less than twenty minutes each feeding the last three or so years.›

‹Twenty minutes?› Tobias whispered.

Like Andalites, humans cannot imagine enslavement to such a degree easily. Even though we had just endured The One, the idea of being imprisoned in your own mind was difficult to grasp. Especially for less than one human hour every three days. The idea can be acknowledged in a sort of academic sense, but the idea itself is incomprehensible in terms of generating an idea of what it would be like on a personal level.

Tobias, sadly, was still in Andalite form. Something everyone around him was discreetly attempt to ignore, unless he brought it up himself.

‹Yes. Even in a large complex it usually is well organized so the human is not gone a noticeable period of time, and they began her in an age where her mother would keep an eye on her. This does not happen to all hosts – obviously we saw Alloran...›

‹But Rachel did see Chapman have that reaction once. For a little while, though, not like this,› Tobias said.

Everyone paused for a moment, shocked Tobias had mentioned Rachel's name so easily. But of course we dismissed this and did not want to bring attention to Tobias and his increasing openness, the ease of communication prior to before.

"I wonder how long it will take," Prince Jake mused, "We have some time right now if we're going to try to get The One off of this ship. But eventually she's gonna have to move. Preferably before she needs to use the bathroom or eat or drink."

‹It is usually worse when someone has been taken at a younger age,› I admitted, ‹But Leah has been imagining the idea of controlling her body by herself for months and did not have Essat controlling her mind while in the delusion of The One. I believe we will see it soon.›

So we went and began collecting samples of what was left of The One in the spacecraft I had called The Cage during my imprisonment. Afterward, we jettisoned remains – a very large amount – from the airlocks.

"Ugh, this thing is so gross," Marco groaned, "Ugh. Ugh."

He was being quite accurate. The tendrils and rotting matter began smelling terribly after a few minutes, and mucus for some reason began collecting on The One itself. Even after death. The mucus reminded me of Leerans, or amphibians on Earth such as frogs or newts – evidence of The One's old requirement for massive amounts of water. And as we continued to take the remains of this creature out we found it had been absorbing water through the spacecraft's hydraulic system.

Yes, some primitive spacecrafts still use hydraulics.

Other parts of its anatomy reminded me of Earth animals such as squid or octopi.

The One was an ugly bluish-gray color. Though the tendrils were red. It looked, oddly enough, like it had tentacles at one point. However, that had given away to a more fungal look. The tendrils looked almost like fur, though, genetic analysis had shown they were actually nerve fibers. Things that apparently tried to embed and integrate with neurons, nerves, and to some extent even the muscles.

Larger things extended from the tendrils. I assumed this was related to how The One kept people from aging or slowly starving to death.

Though this was my opportunity to learn more about The One as an outsider, I did not much like looking at the thing that had imprisoned us. Especially as we found a few creatures that had either died as it died, or had been killed but not shed from its system.

Others, that had been shed, were still there. The newer ones rotting and decaying, with a scent that would never escape The Cage. The stench of dead Andalite was most recent, and I attempted, however unsuccessfully, to calmly gather those who had died without emotion.

We moved the Andalites, to try to figure out what to do with them later so that they could be brought home and given proper treatment after death. Cremation, and burial of the ashes to help grow new trees, and grasses.

But eventually it did get done. And when we returned, Leah blinked.

"Hrrggp mllemp puh," she said.

It reminded me of playing with mouth-sounds.

‹Yeah, we didn't catch that,› Tobias said.

"Thhhup," responded Leah, "Heh. Heh-lup. Mm. He-elp mee. Up?"

"What's the magic word?" Marco said. He was making a joke using human humor and was not really indicating she needed to invoke a spell to summon help.

Then, he pulled Leah to her feet. She nearly collapsed, but we grabbed her. She steadied herself against my back. It felt uncomfortable, however, it was easier for me than it would have been for Marco or Prince Jake and their two legs. She let go, standing by herself.

"Aaaiiie. I. I am up."

"Yeah, genius," Marco said, "Try walking."

Like an Andalite preparing to take a final exam on Apex Level Quantum Physics she concentrated on making a step. It was shaky, but she gathered speed very fast. She would not be walking like a normal human immediately. But she was going to improve fairly quickly.

Humans are very resilient, most of the time.

It reminded me of my first time in human morph, actually. Though I felt sad that someone born in their own body could be so out of touch with it as to remind a tailed quadruped what it feels like to be a biped for the first time.

"I'm free. For real."

It was a true enough statement, considering what had been her forms of slavery in the past. Though it belied a greater truth, I felt, of what being freed or not meant, recalling Tobias in yet another new body he could not escape.

"Thank you... But what now?"

I turned a stalk eye at Prince Jake.

‹Are you sure it was _Kelbrid_ that you saw in there earlier, Ax? In the Scenario?› Tobias asked.

Technically, Marco had seen it. But I had identified it, so I "let that go" as humans say, which is a slang version of saying I did not correct their error.

‹Yes, Tobias. I fear that if they were not here, The One must be spread out. And obviously not to the benefit of the _Kelbrid_.›

I continued privately. I wanted to somehow convey my sympathy for the situation without it coming across as pity. Tobias, who had been changed so many times by our war. Or wars, anyway. ‹Tobias...›

‹It's... It's okay, Ax. We'll talk later. Not now. I have a lot to digest.›

"We don't have to think about that right now," Prince Jake said, "We took care of this spacecraft. We can rest on it. Give it a few hours. Let's decide tomorrow."

‹There is no day or night schedule in space, Prince Jake, so I assume you mean six to eight of your Earth hours.›

It was my version of a joke – something that made sense to Andalites but not well accepted to some of my human friends. I loved how irritated it always made Marco.

"Yeah, Ax," Marco said, "Earth hours, _not _Helmacron hours."

I laughed, ‹Very well then.›


	23. Chapter TwentyTwo Jake

Chapter Twenty Two

Jake

Everything different. Everything the same.

We spent the night aboard the ship, which Ax referred to as The Cage. Or at least, we rested a few hours, trying to plan out what to do next.

I thought about how many things seemed to be a slap in the face – a parallel to everything I had done before. Thinking on it, I was so surprised I had come out here. So surprised that everything could go so wrong again, no matter how hard I had tried. Especially Tobias, a _nothlit_ again, trapped in the body of his uncle. Especially the death of Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash.

I told Ax about Menderash's death later, and what he had given up to find Ax, that night. How he had become a _nothlit. _It hadn't seemed right to talk about it while fighting The One – Menderash had deserved his life being kept out of that reality. Out here, where it belonged. Like the rest of us.

‹He was a good soldier,› Ax had said, lowering his tail – an Andalite acknowledgment of really bad news and a gesture of grief. ‹And he will be missed.›

I wondered what he thought of Menderash, who had given up his Andalite body and life to find him. And in retrospect, I wondered about why he had done it when becoming a _nothlit _was so looked down on by Andalite culture – at least, when it had been done on purpose.

I thought about our situation. Ondrean, Ax, and Leah, the ones we had rescued. How we were going to get them back, and who would take responsibility for Leah.

In Leah's case, I wondered what the future would bring for her on Earth – followups on Human-Controllers being re-assimilated back into the world _en masse_ had not shown many good results for people taken so many years – not even people who had fully been adult. In addition, her Yeerk was dead, but she would have to go forward with the truth of how her family died. And our legal system tended to make a mess of people in that situation – even though Leah had obviously been infested, out here in the Blade Ship, I had no idea how that would be proved. Or how she'd in particular know how to get the evidence together to prove it.

The _Kelbrid_ crossed my mind more than a few times. If they had been part of The One, what did that mean for other _Kelbrid_? And more importantly, what did that mean for Andalites and humans? If there was more of that... of that _thing_, what could we do about it?

We may have been free to sleep a few hours, but I didn't get a wink.

Eventually, though, it was time to move on again.

I felt the pressure, crushing down on my chest. The anxiety no one else could see, buried deep, of making the wrong decision. Of whether I really wanted to take things up again.

"So, if I have things right--"

"And he never does," Marco whispered conspicuously. I guessed old habits died hard.

"If I have things right we have a potentially large issue at hand. The One is at least one of it's kind. Or at least, part of the one thing that makes up its kind. And it's hanging around in _Kelbrid_ space – the _Kelbrid_ being hostile and _Kelbrid_ space being unwelcome to Andalites.

"Which is a problem because, if what we saw there, in that last scenario, was a _Kelbrid_, then we might have a situation. The lack of the communication means the Andalites won't know what's going on, until that thing... Or those things... Begin to hit Andalite space. Our space. Which, knowing the drive of The One, that seems fairly inevitable.

"Am I correct?"

‹Yes,› Ondrean and Ax said.

"So...," I thought, trailing off, "So we need to investigate this further, because Andalites aren't supposed to be here. And we need to warn the Andalite fleet, at the same time, before they go and finish dismantling everything from the war against the Yeerks."

Marco raised his hand, bumping up and down like a first grader who can barely contain themselves.

"Yeah, Marco?"

"Jake, we can't do this. We can't just go busting into alien space. With aliens that might be victim and villain. With just you and me and Leah. I mean, we just can't – we don't have the home field anymore. Not to mention a lack of human food."

"Mmmm, yes," I said, pretending to consider.

Ax smiled with his eyes. ‹Prince Jake,› he said, ‹My duty is to my People. But if by following the law it is the People who I endanger...›

"So you're saying you're in."

‹Me, too,› said Tobias, ‹What am I going to do, anyway? I have the education of a human middle-schooler and the body of an Andalite.›

I looked at both of them. "You both realize we have to do whatever possible to avoid anyone finding out there are Andalites on the spacecraft."

‹Yes, Prince Jake, but you will need at least one Andalite. If only for the knowledge of how to operate spacecraft.›

"Personally, I wouldn't mind going back to Earth about now," Marco said, "We saved Ax. That's what I had come for."

"So, you're in?"

Marco gave me a sad, old smile. None of the fighting of the prior war, just sad acceptance of what he was now. A warrior.

"I'm in."

‹I am not,› Ondrean said, ‹Someone must go back and warn the fleet. And if you are going into _Kelbrid_ space without sanction, then you will need someone inside. Andalite politics will prevent any speedy action from being taken to deal with the threat of The One, the old windbags.›

He turned to Ax, but his stalk eyes were on me. Trying to acknowledge both as his prince, instead of just Ax.

‹If we can get out of here within twelve standard hours, Prince Aximili and Prince Jake, I will attempt to contact you all in four to five standard weeks, as long as I know what frequency and craft you are using. If you are taking this new journey you will need supplies. And possibly crew. I will go back, attempt to gain these things and we can arrange a rendezvous point when we manage to make contact with one another. I obviously will not be able to come back to _Kelbrid _space, but we can find somewhere close to the border to meet. There is at least one system there.›

"That works great, Ondrean. I'm sorry you can't come, but if you're going back you should probably take Leah --"

"No."

"Leah, this isn't a picnic," I said, trying to keep my patience.

"No, it's not, but where am I going to go?" she asked me, "No friends, no family, a legal adult without any adequate human education. Or any way to sustain myself. I should stay with the people I know."

"Leah, that's not exactly what this is about," Marco said, "This is a mentally, emotionally, and probably physically strenuous thing we're contemplating."

‹And you don't act like an adult,› Tobias said bluntly, ‹And we can't spend any extra time with you to help you with your needs.›

She looked around at everyone, not seeing a way out. Eyes wide, trying to see a way to stay with the few things that were now familiar to her.

"Please?"

"Look, Leah," I said, "We can't take you unless there's something useful you can contribute to the team. And right now you need to work on yourself."

I felt pretty awful about it, but there you go. Still, her face lit up.

"Wait! I can contribute something useful," she exclaimed, "I know how to operate a few positions on a Blade Ship!"

"We don't have a Blade Ship."

"But it's somewhere and it's close to The Cage," she said, "That can be our ticket out. Or at least, our way of sustaining ourselves over a longer period of time. It won't be easy to fly and we'll need a larger crew. But it's smaller than this thing, and it still should have lots of human supplies on it. And I can help fly it."

"Plus!" she added, rushing, "We _need_ to find the Blade Ship. It has the _Escafil_ device on it! And everyone knows we can't have one going through the galaxy where it could get into the wrong hands. Like last time."

Sometimes, when I make a decision, I know it's a really good decision. Sometimes, I know when it's a really bad one. Other times I just don't know how I did. I looked at Leah, and I thought it would probably be a lot of all three with her.

And I could have pushed the point. Could have made Leah go home. But she had been a Human-Controller. She knew something about Blade Ships. And that meant we could have at least two people qualified to handle it, since Ax had said he was coming. And I wasn't taking her away from family, wasn't dooming her, if I said yes.

I also knew that back on Earth, they would try to re-integrate her into society, try to re-educate her so she could fit in. Sustain herself. Get a job, maybe finish school. But it hadn't gone well on Earth. And I thought maybe having people she could be close to, a small group, could help her with learning how to adjust and cope.

It wasn't learning to act in society as a whole. But maybe she could learn to work with smaller teams, for now. In any case, if it hadn't worked in large groups, maybe it could work better in smaller ones. So, I decided to agree, for now.

"Okay, Leah."

Everyone in agreement, we looked aboard the spacecraft in search of smaller craft that we could possibly man. Going toward the back, where Tobias had noted bigger doors before The One had taken us. Looking for a dock, or cargo.

Eventually we found them. An Andalite spacecraft – an exploratory vessel for biologists which we dubbed the _Researcher_ - and an Andalite Fighter from the _Intrepid._

Ondrean would take the Andalite Fighter. It was newer, sleeker and more advanced than the ship we had seen crash-land so long ago, in the abandoned construction site. Back when we had met Elfangor. But it was a one-Andalite spacecraft – two tops – and it would get him back into Andalite space, at which point Ondrean could call for help.

The Andalite research vessel was almost too large for us, even if it was nothing compared to the Cage in size. Ideally, it would have had eight people in order to operate it – since it had been made for a team of biologists. Alternately, it seemed to have too little room for people to have a comfortable amount of privacy – though that seemed like something to expect with a research spacecraft.

But Ax felt fairly confident that we could manage it until there were more people with us. And we needed the room. Because assuming we were going to find the Blade Ship we'd need to be able to hold enough crew to operate it. Eventually, at least. And the minimum for operating something as large as the Blade Ship was definitely not going to be five people.

The food in there was made for Andalites, but we could eat emergency rations. Ondrean said with the military laying off in large amounts there was lots of spare rations to go around.

We did, however, emphasize to him that we would need human food eventually. Obviously, we were going to have to find new foods to eat if we weren't going back. But initially we were going to have to rely on Ondrean's ability to provide us with aid.

"So," I continued, "The goal is?"

‹Confiscate the Blade Ship,› Ax said.

‹Go home,› Ondrean said – the chattiest I had ever seen Ondrean. ‹Gather human and Andalite necessities. Find additional crew, and if possible confiscate weapons. Contact the _Researcher _when those needs have been met. And attempt to successfully alert the Andalite fleet.›

"And wait for the Andalite fleet to come," said Leah.

‹Wait for the Andalites to come. The Andalites will come. And until then...,› said Tobias.

I remembered the line well. It felt like yesterday.

It felt like a lifetime ago. But I didn't cry or waver. I didn't get the same sinking feeling as last time.

I also didn't believe that it was guaranteed the Andalites would come. If we had learned anything about Andalites, it was that they could be just as political as people. And if they thought this could benefit them, at least temporarily? We could be stuck, a long time, waiting for some other opportunity.

But I didn't want to give everyone that sense of hopelessness. That our mission was possibly something the Andalites and humans might go and try to use to their advantage for gaining control of a larger amount of space, out in the galaxy.

Leaders have to try to not show weaknesses, or like a situation might be impossible. They also have to show a sense of faith in the results, even when they know they might be doing everything on their own.

"Until then," I said, "Until then, we fight."


End file.
